


Myriameter

by SincerelySin



Category: Death Stranding (Video Games)
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Choking, Crying, Drama, Dubious Consent, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gaslighting, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kinda, Metaphors, Moral Dilemmas, Multi, Porn with Feelings, Possible Character Death, Sexual Violence, Shameless Smut, Slice of Life, Smut, Spoilers, Tragic Romance, Unexpected Fluff, Violence, everything is a metaphor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:27:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26405734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SincerelySin/pseuds/SincerelySin
Summary: A porter who can’t and hasn’t ever been touched. Eileen Vestergaard Ericson. A DOOMs user who finds herself unwillingly thrown into a web of lies, secrets, and terrorism. With a broken arm, injured back and leg, she’s been given a mission to be transported by none other than Sam Porter Bridges. All plans are ruined when a terrorist, Higgs Monaghan, appears when they arrive at their destination, Port Knot City.When Higgs ends up touching her, it links them with a special bond that isn’t visible to the naked eye; with deadly consequences. Always present, it can never be broken or will result in a massive void-out that affects both the world and the Beach. Tethered by the red strand of fate, they must learn to swim, or struggle together.Die-Hardman, her adoptive father, is furious and heartbroken. His daughter is a terrorist by default and the proverbial wife to a mad man. He wanted to keep her as the Eve of the world, and make Sam the Adam.Eileen now makes her deals with the devil to survive, fighting against the waves of tar and trepidation. With her unnatural control of chiriliam and somewhat clairvoyant abilities, she learns to live as Higgs’ weapon and partner; til death do they part.
Relationships: Die-Hardman/Original Female Character(s) (Father/Daughter Relationship), Higgs Monaghan/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	1. Fleance

**Author's Note:**

> The song for this chapter is Once In A Long, Long While... by Low Roar

ℵ

One didn’t need to know much about The Death Stranding to know that this world was utterly fucked. With the roaming BTs, lakes and rivers of black tar, and a subconscious avoidance of physical intimacy that drives people underground, with locks on their hearts. The Earth had been scorched and scarred; leaving its inhabitants to be nothing more than hermits in metal cages waiting for the end. Someone out there needed a way to stop the shadowy monsters and bring life anew to the world. A person who could find a new Adam and Eve; whether they were to be people, or things, creations of a chiral kind, or if it was to be entrusted to future generations of a new breed of humanity.

So when one of those pieces to the puzzle came along; an “Eve” for the garden, a man named Die-Hardman grabbed her in his clutches. A rare thing, so full of power and still in the womb of a woman dying. Her birth would trigger things to come many years down the line; one small babe would be the butterfly effect for a mountain slide. He had the woman brought to headquarters, even letting her meet the president, dine in their fancy halls; he took good care of her and it wasn’t just because she looked similar to President Strand. Funny thing that was. Now when he thought of Bridget later on when he looked at his “daughter”; they ended up looking almost nothing alike.

The day she was born, no one was allowed to touch her, in fact; it was forbidden and everyone agreed to it. Her unusual DOOMs being the cause for such concern. Her very existence contradicted almost everything they knew about DOOMs. If another person with even the potential to awaken their own powers touched her, it would be catastrophic. The resulting void out would be on such a scale, the likes of which had never been seen; even before when atomic bombs were being set off left and right.

Everyone who needed to know why, already knew months before her birth. The rest of them would only see her as an adopted daughter of Die-Hardman; the man in the mask. This necessary danger, but also savior to the world, she too would wear a mask to conceal the truth behind it.

A rather delicate operation with an even more fragile catalyst. One look at her and one could tell, she was rather special. Chiral material and particles floating from the tiny hairs on her head. It whipped around wildly as she screamed and screamed; an angry and confused bundle of terrified joy. When they calmed her, he watched as the chiral infused hair continued to waver and ripple in the air. No one had any answers as to why but they would surely be analyzing it as soon as possible. Someone took a sample, not really focusing on who or what was going on, his gaze had been fixed on her shimmering head; only snapping out of it and returning to his duties when someone shook him tersely.

They kept her far away from the world she was to save. He was there as she grew up, a dawdling babe at first, always wanting to laze about and rather sickly. Few people helped take care of her; scientists disguised as doctors and house keepers, the only people she ever knew were making sure she was stable and not about to void out the entire area. Friends were completely off the table for her and she’d never see the outside world until she was able to handle herself.

As she aged, she asked more questions and became rather inquisitive, inquiring things about himself, their government, what exactly his relationship with the Mrs. Strand was. Oh how he missed when things were simpler, when the president was more of an idol for her. Now as she was nearing puberty however, her jealousy grew and the anger and rage that came with it. He was never there anymore, there was no time to simply sit and visit with her, always busy with their strong and confident leader.

Die-Hardman felt guilty, truly he did, but there was no time to go to her and play childish games anymore. He’d never read her another bedtime story for he needed her to start growing up. To become colder, to be like the Beaches out there. Empty, fluid like the sea and an endless void, and above all else, to wait for a proper Adam for her garden. Bridget was too possessive of her adopted son, Sam, but he was trying to propose the idea of having them become engaged. A symbolic marriage he would tell her; for he knew about her own plans, what she was trying to do to America. He alone believed he could stop her, but he wrong he would later admit to being. For now, he would trudge on through the thick of it and wait for the proper time.

As she was then, a rebelling teen who visited Heartman way too often, too immature and destructive. Taking on deliveries, running from MULEs, and in general, being a royal pain in his ass. He would’ve stopped it a long time ago if he didn’t have such a soft spot for her.

He felt their connection, she was just as much his real daughter now as another child if he ever had one. Their bond stronger than what was between most people, he wasn’t sure if it was because of her DOOMs or something else. So he let her do as she pleased, even if that only fueled her rebellion. Taking what he could get and seeing her when she would stop by, it was a sort of contentment that was fake and unsubstantial, but would do for a while.

Heartman was helping keep an eye on her as well as let him keep a watchful gaze on Heartman. He wasn’t sure if the man was up to anything devious, or at the very least, coming up with some precarious plan that might involve his daughter.

Nothing ever came of it, no information to or from Heartman and not from his daughter, his Eileen. He called her that the day she was born, in that delivery room, as if he had really been her father there to see her take her first breath in the world. If he could give anything to start over, a second chance, to do things right; seeing her crying, and the tears from the sheer amounts of chiriliam, the birth of a new way to start over. The new world wouldn’t have him, more than likely, if he did his job correctly. He’d make plenty of enemies and step on the wrong feet to get this done. Just another set of instructions for the delivery of a better life.

Never once did he picture himself as God, even as he searched for an Adam for his plan. The irony of it all not lost to him, but he couldn’t see himself as anything but a powerless man following the strength of the women in his life. Most who were mothers, adoptive or otherwise. Maybe there was a connection between a man like him; unable to give birth or be more than just a spark for the actual flame, and the one woman he loved who did the very same. He could only grasp it after it was created, keep it held in his arms and nurture it the best he could.

He could only hope that she understood when it came time to explain what he had been plotting all along. After hearing all the details of his plan, having disabled them from the network for a mere 10 minutes and 45 seconds, she could only gawk at him. The stab of betrayal and the twisting of her heart.

Cattle fodder. _A sacrifice._ And he expects her to _understand_? Was he fucked up in the head?

She had shrugged him off then and hadn’t spoken to him until the day of the mission. Every day leading up to then, well, they both felt like the days were counting down to their execution.

The time came ever closer and soon, she would need to go with Sam westward. They had only met a few times and quite frankly, Die-Hardman wanted to keep it that way; to keep them distant until the time was right but things had changed. Between Higgs, Amelie, and the growing danger of a Sixth Extinction; they needed to begin forming a bond before time ran out. Slow sands of chiral matter in a timepiece fell ever quicker and with a rushing fury the more KNOTs Sam tied together. Of course plans never go as they intend to and when Eileen broke an arm and hurt her back in a fall, quite literally, on a rush job; well, that threw a wrench into things. Luckily for everyone, Sam was a Porter, and quite a good one at that. A small and slender body would be no problem for a heavy build like that. As long as neither of them touched skin to skin, the job would get done and without any other hitches.

He listened to her complain as she got ready for the job. “I can make it without an arm! Or none at all!”, she had said. Of course, he believed her.

The trip wouldn’t be easy but she could make it without many problems. Especially if she just used one of their top of the line delivery vehicles but even then, he couldn’t risk the MULEs or heavens forbid – Higgs getting a hold of her. He decided that putting her in the safety of a man who could get the job done right was the only way to go. His gut feeling was almost always correct, even since Eileen came into his life. She was like a ray of light, a lucky charm; perhaps it had simply been an effect of the high amounts of chiriliam she produced.

Or maybe it was...Lifting his head sharply back up out of his scrambled thoughts as she threw a case down rather violently before she exclaimed, “I don’t need some,” she waved her hands about, “ _man_ porting me around!”

She let out a frustrated sigh before admitting, “Even if he is really cool...”

Continuing his silence as she walked on passed him, not finding any words in his throat; rather, he was noticing a big lump keeping him from speaking. An uncomfortable choking feeling as if he swallowed too many cryptobiotes at once. Her retreating form as she went to the lift made him feel rather small and forgotten. He almost had tears in his eyes, like he was watching her go off and get married, or moving to another city, as if he may never see her again except through holograms or ever at all. Focus fading behind walls of tears as she stopped, her short hair still waving like the wind; bundles of thick shadowy locks laced with liquid golden crystals glistening, fading dimly in the light. She turned to face him, a flood of tears threatening to cover her face as her mouth scrunched up and she wiped her nose once on her leather sleeve before looking down.

The lift began, showering her in the glowing colors from above, and she didn’t look back up until it was almost too late. Their eyes meeting one more time before they were both alone in their misery. The gate burst open, Eileen letting out a wail of pain and the tears rolled down her face like rain. Only this one was aging her on the inside, fraying and ripping her heartstrings. She wondered if he felt like this too; what a horrid feeling.

After she had gone, the tears had started for him as well. That was it, heated words and an anger fueled conversation. Her pride and his reluctance; what a pair it made them. He wanted to laugh and cry at the same time but the sounds wouldn’t come; a strangled sob wracked his body instead and back at headquarters, his body slumped to the floor as his hologram vanished in the air.

The deep blues and greys, a hidden solace in a mechanical coldness of the distribution center always made her feel uneasy. She longed to be outside with the bright colors of the world, where the tar hadn’t corroded everything. Feeling a nostalgia for the day she left Capital Knot City for the first time, this was making her stomach flip just like it had then. A young and naive little girl trying to escape her overbearing father and prove herself, that she wasn’t just Die-Hardman’s daughter. As the lift rose higher, that day fell farther into the back of her mind and the ever standoffish Sam Porter Bridges stood before her. He awkwardly shuffled his feet around and tried to look everywhere but at her. Possibly to give her some semblance of modesty while she tried to wipe the tears from her face and compose herself.

A gentle and rather quiet “Uh...Hi?” Was the only thing she was swore she heard him say, but not feeling much for conversation, she pulled his usual tactic back on him. Grunting and walking right by him, she made her way to the terminal.

As her own steps echoed, she heard him scoff and follow slowly behind but with stronger steps. Long legs easily catching up to her own and as they both came to a stop, she looked to her side and gave him a quick one over. His eyes following suit but stopping first at her arm, before moving on and staying to watch her hair as it floating recklessly above her head. She had a hood pulled tight against where it would meet her neck, quite like a scarf; a mask not that unlike Die-Hardman’s own attached to it and covering her lower jaw.

_It doesn’t look as creepy_ , Sam thought. It wasn’t skeletal looking and from a distance, might look like a regular mask. Still gave him a bit of the heebie-jeebies though.

Feeling Eileen watching him as he accessed the terminal and got the information for the assignment. He felt shivers and a bad feeling, like a small voided pit of tar in his stomach, cryptobiotes crawling around struggling to swim.

Carrying her all the way to Port Knot City? Were they serious? He saw her limp a lil but she could just drive herself even with just one arm or something. I guess being carried might be better on the back but he wasn’t exactly a doctor. Whatever they wanted with her, it had to be now? He was damn near about to scratch his head for a while when thinking of this one. Die-Hardman didn’t tell him many details either. She was important, his adopted daughter, and his next big precious cargo. If _anything_ happened to her, well, Sam was sure it would be an explosion worse than a void out. He wasn’t sure what that guy’s temper was like but he was sure it was anything but a good time. Not a delivery he’d want to get anything less than an S-Rank on that’s for sure.

“Thank you.” The robotic voice bounced everywhere before fizzling out, leaving another uncomfortable silence between them as he placed the body bag on the ground and waited for her to lay down.

Swallowing as she rubbed her bad shoulder, the left one; she slowly lowered herself in the bag. When Sam’s hand got too close and she flinched, he flinched back and muttered something to himself about it.

Two people in an asexual world, a culture now devoid of physical commitments. Two who are also too afraid to even touch anyone, both with good reasons not to. Everything under the shadow of their hands seemed to be doomed no matter how hard they tried to shield them. A cursed half life in the backdrop, watching the rest of the survivors at least act truly alive.

The zipper closed with ease as he neared her face, her eyes not betraying a single thing; an open book and the look was all too familiar to him. Making sure to stop near her covered neck, leaving plenty of breathing room. Letting her feel a bit more at ease in mind and body, or he hoped so anyways. “I’m gonna pick you up now, hold still, o.k.?” Her reply was barely a whisper but he heard clearly in the quiet stillness of the world. She was light, not all that heavy but he carried few other things, opting to use a speed skeleton to cover the vast distance and make the trip as short as possible. If he could outrun the MULEs, the rest of it was a piece of cake.

He wanted rent to trike that was in fair condition, give the owner a few likes in the process but he couldn’t with this cargo. Something about it being too fragile, _but not that Fragile_ , he said in his head. So he’d do the job how they wanted, for now he wouldn't ask questions, keep his eyes forward and get it done. For the people, right? He was supposed to be making KNOTs and bringing everyone together, this had to be somehow connected too. Everything was like a goddamned spider’s web. Eileen was the adopted daughter of Die-Hardman, who was a porter but now needs to be delivered to Port Knot City on a secret mission out West? Why did that sound so _goddamn_ familiar? He blew out a puff of air. There was something going on, he was sure of it. And it certainly wasn’t from the weird chiriliam floating out from her hood, she stuck out like a sore thumb.

The sky was all clear, dawn just finishing up its arrival and the sun coming to a high point to bake the dew away. It had been raining a lot recently. He wondered briefly if that was related to the all the chiriliam in the air. It was heavy and thick like honey, but it choked you and suffocated you; a sickly sweet retching feelings. He imagined a BT grabbing him by the neck and tensed before adjusting his pack and her as if he was merely shrugging something off. _Gotta get this show on the road_.

Despite a few near encounters with MULEs, thankfully no BTs, Sam really didn’t want to have to cross that bridge yet. Carrying bodies wasn’t all that easy and without much equipment if any at all. The idea of something grabbing him, pulling into the dark of the tar, almost made him shudder again. She pulled him from his thoughts when she called his name. “Yeah, what’s up?”

“Do you mind if I hum or sing a little bit? Make the journey go a bit faster, promise I’ll be quiet if there’s trouble.” Her could feel her shift just a bit and adjusted himself a bit to the right, before straitening out again. “I always got a bit bored of toting around deliveries in silence, it’s nice for a bit but I understand if…”

When she trailed off, he grunted and replied, “It’s fine. Go ahead, I don’t mind for a little bit. I’ll give you a heads up if there’s MULEs.”

She smiled into her mask, and took a breath before starting off low, a deep humming sound and as she imagined the rest of the band joining in. A drummer, maybe someone idly strumming on a guitar, but the real magic was from the singer who was center stage in her mind, getting their voice ready. She sang about a fresh start in a new town, about how once in a while there’s a sky just as blue as now and hope is there just around the corner. It’s hard to find, but when you catch a glimpse of it, and can find your way, it’s there again and in your grasp. Something Sam wished he could say he understood, the concept a bit lost on him.

He appreciated the husky and low voice she was using, it wasn’t so harsh on his ears and wasn’t loud enough to attract extra attention. Could carry a nice tune if anybody were to ask him about it.

The rest of the road there surprisingly wasn’t that difficult at all, a few snags when they finally ran into BT territory. Her advanced DOOMs allowing her to see them outright, without needing his BB to point them out, they avoided the small group of them easily. Passing around the right side of the mountain, going a bit around and the long way home, but it was worth not dealing with more of those monsters.

Port Knot City was finally within sight and they both breathed out a sigh of relief. She wouldn’t be confined to her prison bag and they could keep moving out West to get the country back on its feet after taking a break for a few days. Maybe by then she can convince her father to let her travel alone or just go back home. _Not likely_ , a voice in her mind groaned.

As the city came into view, sliding down quickly, weaving between the jutting rocks, they both seemed to have an anticipation building within them. The Timefall started as they neared, falling like a thick veil around them, making their heads and their hearts feel heavy. Something was wrong and Eileen could feel it deep in her bones, something was coming. A storm. Dangerous and full of malice.

They reached the hard ground of the port, a stark contrast to the softened earth they’ve been traversing for hours now. Everything was cold again, unforgiving and controlling; to never escape the watchful gaze of Bridges. Back to wearing a mask, no more songs; the bird goes back to the cage.

Moving a bit slowly as they came to the first set of stairs, Sam’s Odradek scanner was starting to go ballistic, frantically pointing all around until it focused in near his feet. Thick tar had risen had like a tide during a full moon, lapping and waving close enough to them he started to feel panic. Something was here and it was pissed. He got a bit closer and suddenly great reaching arms of the dead grabbed his ankles, bringing him a bit off balance and when he tried to center both their balances, they fell into the deep as the arms of the tormented dragged them into the center.

Eileen held her breath as best she could but she was losing air, her face covered in the foul sludge. Sam sat up as fast as he could manage to get her out of it, Die-Hardman was going to have his head for this, _if_ he made it out alive.

Suddenly the hands were merely grasping and touching, no longer interested in anything other than keeping them bound there. Groans of agony went with the wind and fell around them in harsh whispers. The lights beyond them finally flickering in and out, signaling the coming of whatever was the cause of the madness at their feet. She started to hyperventilate, trapped on the porters back while trying to wipe off the tar from her face. If she could just get it out her eyes, she had to use something. Sacrificing her scarf and exposing the bare skin of her neck was the only way, she needed to help Sam fight off whatever was responsible. It was cold and goosebumps ran up and down her supple flesh. A warning, a promise, some sort of premonition of deadly proportions.

She only heard it when her carrier stopped breathing heavily briefly before beginning again. A soft pitter patter, the slap of something wet against another body of water. Someone walking? Someone moving closer, they had just suddenly appeared with no warning. Low at first, like distant rumbles in a storm, flashing and warning, and moving forward without respite. A dripping, crumbling, mass of sounds and feelings falling like rain, dark and brooding. She didn’t know what the hell was going on but she sure hoped to hear something soon.

“The name’s Higgs.” It rang out, clear and true like a warning shot in the dark.

Sam watched as a man floated before him and gulped. Just what in the hell was this guy? “The particle of God that permeates all existence.” That didn’t help him at all.

The scanner softly flapping now, quiet and delicate like butterfly wings. It made every bit of silence feel like they were being held in place, standing off in the cold of the downpour. Eileen felt her stomach flip. Her father had mentioned a Higgs once, some sort of terrorist, to stay far _far_ away from him at all costs. His power was already great, damn near her own levels of DOOMs, so falling into the wrong hands...she didn’t want to think of what he could do with that sort of power.

“Ah, so it was _you_ that dragged him into all this?” Just who the fuck was this guy talking to? Sam made a face at him before following his gaze to stare at the Bridges building. Amelie? Bridget? Or was he talking about Die-Hardman? Was this Higgs guy here to take Eileen from him? As if he’d let that asshole take her or anyone else. He trusted his gut on this one and it told him the man before him was anything but good. But then he saw her there on the rooftop, umbrella sticking out against a pale sky . _Fragile_. What was she doing watching them?

He ignored whatever Higgs was going on about before turning to glare at him once more but was surprised when he transported right in front of his face. Sam jumped back as much as he could while carrying an extra person.

He sniffed the air deep and thoroughly, “What’s that?”, he asked the porter before him. “Bridget Strand is dead?”

Eileen let out a muffled cry of shock, _what_? The President was dead and her father had refused to tell her? There was something off about him for a while but she had no idea. This was huge, something like this, it could rip America apart again. What was it all far but just to fall over and over?

Higgs went on about America too. Her last president, dead and burned, ashes and dust. But someone was taking her place, a daughter? The _girl_ he had said. Continuing to smell Sam as if he could merely learn his secrets by his scent, he breathed deep again. He managed to keep Higgs from seeing the body bag up close but he knew the man was growing curious. Talking about Death Stranding, Extinction Entities, and how Amelie had nothing to do with DOOMs; at least not in the way he was thinking. His head was spinning and as his vision slightly began to blur, Higgs’ own Odradek was beginning to spin.

Spindly threads of tar reaching up to meet ones protruding from his own fingers. Talking of how he was bound to everything, each world; being his own little angel of death. The master calling upon his own personal puppet of mass destruction.

Pulled from beyond the black rainbow of the deep tar, it roared and writhed. Loud giggling cutting through the low moans of the beast. A finger raised to his golden mask. A taunting gaze before his grin grew even more. "Isn't this what you've been waiting for this whole time?", he yelled before jumping through worlds and appearing before him in an instant. “A game over!?”

Eileen was scared now, if Sam really had to fight something that filled her with such terror, carrying nearly half his weight and with nothing to help fight. “Sam, put me down! Quick!”

She started reaching her hand to the zipper, if he couldn’t unstrap her in time, she would bust out of this fucking thing.

The hands below them let go, but all he could think was _s_ _hit, shit shit!_ Sam tried to turn so Higgs wouldn’t check the now talking body bag on his back, but as soon as he hid it, the man teleported before his face again, smelling him one last time. “Oh but that, that’s something _new_ isn’t it. Not some old crone’s body or her pretty little offspring. Not that you would really try and sneak them around like this.” He was gone in a flash and behind Sam quicker than he could fathom.

Grinning before turning his head and staring her down, the fear frozen on her face. “Well, well, well darlin’, can’t say I’ve seen you around these parts. Got a name?” Reaching out his muck covered hand, he pulled back unexpectedly as he watched Sam struggle to free her from his pack. “Aw it’s cute watching you try to save her, knowing that you’re going to be too…” He removed his glove and lunged his hand forward, “... _late!_ ”

What happened next in Eileen’s own mind began to crack the very bits of her psyche that could even comprehend the situation. Flashes of images and monsters in her mind. The Beach. Higgs. Amelie and Bridget. The _same_ but not. Not. _Not_ …? The KNOTs. Sam, he’s there and then gone like a ghost of a memory. It was like snapshots of an old film over her eyes. The bleak and blackness of the landscape around her shattered like a chair against a mirror. She was gone and falling, tumbling, down into the abyss.

Higgs too was on the same terror filled high. A twisted part of him enjoying the sensations while trying to drink in as much as he could. His eyes rolling back into his own head. Her Beach, she’s here and there, and then at his Beach. Standing naked and exposed, open books for each other to read. The great black tar pit. A spiders web. Strand and Bridges, Sam trying to break their connection. The red strand. Something was there and growing, deep within his belly, warm and confusing. It was in her stomach as well, he could _feel_ it there , a great welling and pooling beginning. Familiar and foreign, two sides of the same coin. Their connection was stabilizing and growing so intense, he felt _fantastic_.

Her mind and body shuddered as the mental link stopped abruptly. Both stared at each other until Higgs looked down and his brow furrowed, head turning in awe. When she followed, everything around her stopped. Her ears began to ring but it wasn’t the sound of beautiful bells or chimes in the wind. A low whining and grain scratched her brain and her ears. Fear rose from just as far down as the strand had come from.

That was it then. Just like he said, _game over_.

Sam had finally gotten them free but as he swung around and watched her slide down into the tar, unable to hold herself up, he tried to reach for her. Almost dropping her but managing to lift her torso up best he could without hurting her broken arm. Between her and that black and gold jackass, a thick wavering red umbilical cord shared between them.

He would learn later that he could only see it because of his BB; and only those with a high enough level of DOOMs could see it without one.

“It seems I’ve found my consolation prize. I think I’ll be taking _this_ along side knowing it won’t end well for you Sam Porter Bridges. Even if you do survive-”, waving a finger at him, “You might not enjoy what happens after now that you lost your cargo.”

He grabs her arm roughly with telekinesis, pulling her in her daze close to him. The surprise and tears plastered on her face, a combination between the realization that they all fucked up, the chiriliam heavy in the air, and the overwhelming sensations of the connection. She didn’t have the energy to even try to fight back. Her everything was in so much pain, and a massive black hand print on her neck; slowly developing angry red and purple bruises.

“Ta-ta for now.” And with a little joyful way of his hand, narrowing avoiding being grabbed by the angry young man, he disappeared with his treasure in tow leaving Sam alone to deal with the monstrosity.

ℵ


	2. Seven Mile High

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song for this chapter is Because We Have To by Low Roar.

ℵ

Eileen awakens the first time to a patting feeling on her ass and hearing someone humming a rather dour sounding tune. The swinging jolts from being carried, and rather uncomfortably so, had woken her a few times but with each one she was more awake than the last. She wanted to kick the guy carrying her. The other man in the mask, Higgs.

A sharp pain flashes behind her eyes and she remembers; groaning, _Sa_ _m_. She hopes he’s alright.

Higgs notices she’s awake and starts to speak to her but it sounds like she’s underwater; she can’t really understand him that well. Her consciousness fading in and out until suddenly, her hands hit the padded purple flooring of Heartman’s room. She hadn’t been there in quite some time, if she recalled correctly. He was busier than ever lately. Images flashed by all around her, sped up like falling sand. Of those was when they were watching movies together, her having to get used to someone just dying every 21 minutes, and the weird comfort she found in his company.

He was definitely an odd fellow, if anyone could even be called that; quirky sounded better but she wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or not. Not that she would ever intentionally insult him, but it was fun to tease him.

She tries to get up but can’t, instead turning to tell him something and then, she’s alone in the dark again. It sounds like rain but in the distance, as if she were in the middle of the eye of a great storm. Calm but dangerous, the crashing battle just above on the horizon.

More dream like memories come up within her mind. A cold rushing wave of salt water swirls at her arms and legs. Warped memories of being sheltered, hidden away, but she’s there with Higgs, he was the same. Scars of the heart flashed angry and red in her mind’s eye. It was hard to breathe, everything felt heavy and weighed down in tar. A magnetic pull dragging her towards the Earth’s Core. Her hands flew to her chest but it felt too cold. Finally able to open her eyes again, she felt like her equilibrium was off, like she was upside down but floating upwards.

Then she heard Higgs, a whisper across her heart. He’s stranded on his Beach for the first time, afraid and trapped. The agony rolls off of him in waves and then it’s gone. She’s alone again as she melts into another memory. He’s not a porter anymore, with a face covered in gold and a skeletal grin. He’s rebelling and trying to find power. Reaching hands towards the crying sky and demanding the end.

Feeling like she’s been electrocuted; a dark, sparking smoke covers the view and she pushed back, flung into a different vision suddenly. He’s bowing to Amelie. Greedy hands stretched out waiting for a reward. His hands with a web between, the lady in red caught in the middle. Not, but _not just another_ KNOT. A vision of Sam there behind them, unlike the feeling from before, he wasn’t really there, it was just a remnant. Again she was ripped from one place to another, she was exhausted.

Opening her eyes again and saw nothing but an endless trench of tar. As far as the eye could see, it consumed the world around her like a great flood. A cataclysm of death. Slowly, someone rises from the middle, it was Higgs. She felt her stomach twist painfully. A strand of some sort, something between them rose with him, and then it was there on her belly. A red umbilical cord. Then when she looks up, he’s there face to face but he feels cold like blackened ice. Long and thin frostbitten fingers slowly wrapping around her neck. He’s laughing and grabbing her throat tightly before she finally awakens and see nothing but green rolling hills in front of her. It’s still dark out, the rain slowed to a slow drizzle. The weather was looking up but she felt anything but cheerful.

With double vision and a sickness in her stomach, along with something just draining the energy out of her, she sighs and slumps forward. Barely hearing him once more, she just made out his teasing tone. “Leaving again so soon huh? Can’t blame you, this shit is draining me. Tried giving it a few yanks, _know what I mean_ , but the damn thing just w-”. His bitching was putting her to sleep and an all too familiar feeling drenched her, pulling Eileen under into the void of her own mind.

A memory of a token. Something to connect and strengthen those between it. The day Heartman had given her a book from his personal collection, she never let it go. The young girl had developed something of a crush on the older man. Knowing her father, Die-Hardman, would be furious should he ever find out. She had her own theories that he wasn’t really trusting of the man, and a gut feeling told her Heartman didn’t trust him back. Lots of tense moments and conversations happened when she would talk about him. Looking back, she really understood his over protective nature, but if anything _had_ happened, she was too young to have wanted it be anything more than a fantasy. She would’ve turned him down, he was a bit old for her and she grew out of it rather quickly. Admittedly, seeing him before her, using the last precious moments of his borrowed time here to talk about the book, before handing it to her, a bit of the spark for the flame returned. A lot of what he did seemed rather ridiculous and peculiar, but it made him stand out. Not to mention his intelligence was an attractive feature.

And yet she hadn’t brought it with her. A token of luck that was supposed to keep her out of harms way; but she left it right on the table walking straight by it in her anger. She wanted to blame her father, however, she could only blame herself.

Snaps of fragmented recollections of things went by like a river. She didn’t want to focus on any particular one so she just watched them go by before a loud bang caught her attention. There they were, her and Heartman, watching a rather short black and white film about a gangster. They’d seen it several times now but she always used to throw her popcorn up at the gunshots and pretend to be scared. It made them both laugh until he told her to clean it up, in a rather serious and authoritarian voice. Then she just laughed harder and threw some at him. Childish but it made Eileen’s chest pulse rather painfully.

“Heartman…” She whispers before feeling a rather pointy boot tip jabbing her in the side. It felt like she’d be swimming against the flood for days. She wondered how long it’d actually been.

“Rise and shine sweetheart. You’ve been out for a while. Couldn’t use the express way, so I’ve had to carry you the entire way. Never thought I’d be making deliveries again; much less for myself.” His condescending tone made her scrunch up her face in annoyance. He really did act like some sort of king in a castle. Not stopping to wait for her to reply, he assumed she was going to take a minute to drink this all in. Who could blame her? He was a _god_ after all. “But thinking about another man already darlin’? Not a good look. Guess I can’t really blame you considering you haven’t peaked under the mask yet but-”

She's too out of it to do anything but struggle as he walks up beside her. “You should learn some manners.” A fist like a hammer swung down on the back of her head hard.

When she finally came to and felt stable enough to understand what the hell was going on, she noticed they had went farther than she though. The frosty mountain top covered the landscape for miles. She could barely see anything but the white blanket spanning the horizon. She saw the dark sky above them and turned quickly to look for any sign of Higgs. He was there of course, behind her lounging back under the slab of rock jutting out of the mountain. The “cave” they were in was hardly a cave at all. More like a sloped v-shape she was surprised to have not rolled out of and down into the Timefall snow. Her face dropped as she glared at him, he probably would’ve let her to, if he could.

“Now now, there’s no need to look at me like that.” He was picking at his fingernails, pretending like he cared about how they looked, eyes on her like a hawk. “Didn’t _daddy_ ever teach you any manners?”

He was just trying to get a rise out of her, Eileen knew it, and it was working. Her fists clenched against the hard stone, little bits of gravel and dirt scratching at her fingers. She wished she could take this stupid, _goddamn,_ red umbilical cord and choke him with it.

“That’s so cruel! I’ve saved you and you want me to die? I guess we’re both suicidal because I’m close to leaving your ass here. See how you like getting voided out.”

He slid a bit towards her, sitting cross legged and resting his chin on his hand. “Maybe I could just stop the Timefall and let your ass walk yourself to your doom and I’ll be on my merry way.”

She fake laughed and it was a harsh cruel sound, it made Higgs narrow his eyes, but she didn’t give a shit about his empty threat. She knew almost everything one could know about her own special DOOMs powers; maybe there was something she was missing, almost certainly so, but he had to have known that too. Through their newfound connection. He must have been trying to bluff her, thinking she’s that dumb; either that, or he was the one that was stupid.

“Really? And I’m sure you think you’d get far right?” Waving back and forth between them a few times before leaning back and trying to mock his bluffed ease of mind. “We’d both void out instantly. Even on the Beach. You saw.”

His silence only fueled her own ego and she felt her mouth keep going, her brain told her to stop but she honestly couldn’t. Now she saw why he gabbed so damn much. She could always tease Heartman; she wanted to try it with a deadly terrorist, a godlike man who had to _babysit_ her and keep her _safe_. She ate up the irony. “You wouldn’t be fast enough.”

He might not be fast enough to avoid something as quick as instantaneous death, but what he _could_ do was launch himself at her so quickly she barely had time to take half a breath. Slender fingers wrapping tightly around the black hand print on her neck and gripping just tight enough to let the smallest wisp of air to and fro in her windpipe. Her head was spinning and it was getting hard to breathe as she scratched at the leather of his jacket. The head of a cobra, stripes of black and gold, bright colors a warning sign in the animal kingdom. A wild animal like Higgs wasn’t to be messed with.

“The next time you want to mock me _darlin’_ , I ain’t gonna go easy on you. I don’t care if I blow us both to kingdom come, you don’t talk to me that way. I’m Higgs fucking Monaghan and I’m the Particle of Go-”

“God that Permeates All Existence. Yes I heard it the first time, I was there. Body bag remember?” She chokes out as his grip was lessening during his attempt at a speech. She really didn’t want to have to go through that again. But when the snare around her neck tightens again, she felt a blip of panic up and down her entire body; before just as it came, it went.

Scoffing as he sat back, he muddled over the idea of just killing her and both of them causing a massive nuclear explosion right here. Maybe they’d take out far enough to keep Sam from getting to the West and letting time for the Sixth Extinction to happen. He wouldn’t have to work this hard and kill two birds, almost literally, with one stone. If he could find a stone, but choking her to death sounds rather appealing too. “Keep running your mouth. I’ll just have to find something to fill it with. Won’t I?”

The seductive tone in his voice, and the barely noticeable sliding of his hood where he must’ve been wiggling his brow, only pissed her off but she didn’t bother saying anything else yet. He really had an answer for everything; now realizing this must be how her father felt when dealing with her. Loud mouthed and bratty, always quick on the draw with something equally if not wittier than the last. So she just turned away from him and hugged her knees to her chest. The pain in her arm and back were still fairly bad, but overall, she guessed she could count her lucky stars nothing was worse. The back pain mostly subsided and it felt like she would be walking from here on out.

Promises to herself were the easiest to break, so she taunts him again just for the hell out it. “I guess that’s why we made it here so fast huh? Don’t have anything _big_ enough to stuff into an-”

If Eileen had told anyone she hadn’t seen him come at her the first time, she would have to say the second time, it was like he had been there the entire time, waiting for her to even breathe wrong. In an instant he had a knife out and was pressing it hard against her neck. Warning bells were blasting in her head, sweat immediately began to race down her forehead. She’s fucked up a lot when it comes to arguing and pressing buttons, but there was never any real danger. Like a minnow in the pond of a creature that _was_ the bottom of the pond itself. Ready to snatch her from the deceptive safety of the waters and into the gaping chasms of the dark hell below.

“I told you. I’d find something, didn’t I?” He grabbed the mask covering her jaw and ripped it off, flinging it out into the cold expanse of the snow. Forcing her mouth open with a thumb and his forefinger, using her fear which kept her frozen in place, he started to slide the knife into her mouth. Making the smallest and thinnest of cuts on her tongue, causing Eileen to whine pitifully.

As smooth and swiftly as he did it, he was gone from her within a moment. Wiping the blade across his own tongue and watching her with intrigue. The tears had been running down her face without her even taking notice of them. Furiously rubbing her arm against her face to get rid of evidence she had been completely and totally terrified.

“I suppose, if you’re sorry and apologize. And I mean apologize, _like a good girl_. Then I guess, it’d be no biggie right?” Drying off his knife on the cold black leather of his pants, he examined it in the light before going to put it away. Stopping briefly as he peered at her. Reminding her of a detective from one of those films she’d watched with Heartman. A crooked cop.

 _Be a good girl_ he says. She scoffs and looks away a bit ashamed, scared, and with a bruise on her pride like the speckled ones on her neck. Without even thinking about; for even if she had, he would’ve still heard her due to their unnatural psychic connection, she looked right at him before stating plainly, “You’re an asshole.”

Almost as if he couldn’t believe she’d said that, or like it was the funniest joke he’s ever heard. His laugh was like a whipping crack of lightning against the silence of the winter around them. Somehow even though it felt terrifying and electrifying, it was nice. She hadn’t heard anyone laugh like that, not so genuinely, in a very long time. Actually, Eileen couldn’t remember anyone in her life who had laughed like that. She started to even doubt her own father ever laughed with such pure unadulterated joy.

It made her stomach flip strangely and a warmth covered her face; making the entire awkward flirting with a madman even worse.

“Well _alright_ , I wasn’t expecting you to have guts.” Higgs slapped a hand to his knee while cackling again. “Honey, I am most definitely what you would call a metric fuck ton of an asshole. I’m the guy your daddy probably tried to keep you locked away from. I wouldn’t do well going out to dinner to meet your folks; they’d call the cops.”

When he settled back down and got comfortable, as much as he could against the hard stone, he just cocked his head to one side as if waiting. “How long do I have to wait? Ten years? We don’t have that long anyways.” She could hear the smile behind the mask. “Try ten seconds. I just started counting.”

Crawling, or rather, shuffling against all the pebbles towards him. She stopped just before his knees, feeling his warmth made her blush again though she would deny it if asked about it. Hearing a faint and echoed “Three...and four...and-” just made it worse. Nothing sounded more satisfying to her than just punching him square in the face, but even as she thought about doing it, he bumped his knee into her in a cautioning manner. She would poison his food one day or take that knife and gauge out his eyes if he kept hitting her knee like that. Deep bubbling laughter and then “Eight...n _iii_ ne-”.

Thinking back suddenly to this one scene in an old steamy romance she had seen, again with Heartman, though that time he had been so busy, time flew by. Instead of watching with her, he had been dead on the couch. No one to throw popcorn at, not that she would have. Her attention had been completely dominated by the flickering of the movie on the screen. A love affair between opposite sides. Forbidden romance with the enemy, who turned out to not be so bad in comparison to the rest of the world. At that time she may have looked at the man who was wandering Beaches looking for his family, and wishing she could just do the same, take his attention like hers was. Steal him away from that past and force him to be there, with her.

She tried to hang on to that memory for a second, how she had felt back there on the soft plush couch in a lab too fancy compared to her own. To here and now, on the cold snowy cap of a mountain in the middle of nowhere, knee to knee with one of the most dangerous terrorists that world has ever has the displeasure of experiencing. Abruptly, as if to mimic the fantasies of her mind that she knew she was inadvertently projecting to Higgs; she was in his lap straddling him and bracing herself on his shoulders with trembling hands She’d never done this, only mimicked the actions before pretending to fall onto her bed to sleep. Always too embarrassed by and distrustful of the ever present Bridges security cameras watching her.

Pretending to have a normal life just wasn’t something one could do in this world anymore.

Yet now here she was, sitting in the lap of a man who was tormenting her, forced a connection between them, and had nuked an entire fucking city for fun. Playing nice as the prey, to escape the jaws of death. To hang there in the maw of a hunter and pretend to be dead and diseased, so they go after the next best thing instead.

She knew it was completely screwed up to think this way, but watching now as Higgs’ eyebrows raised; feeling him slowly lean back and lift his arms to grab her backside, she almost wanted to laugh like he had. Instead she gulps rather painfully, having to a second time as she struggled to not do it a third time and seem like a fish out of water. Her hands came forward and gently grabbed his mask. It felt so rich with chiriliam and full of energy. Her mouth draped open at the sudden rush of it. Not even aware of Higgs watching her at that point, Eileen just went to place it beside them on the ground. She stared at the laughing grin of the half skull for a moment, almost feeling like she was losing her breath and somehow breathing even harder than normal. And when she turned back, to look at the god-man under her, she froze. Like the ice around them, everything went silent and she felt the tears slip from her eyes.

She’d argue with him sometime later on the road that it was just because of the chiriliam in the air; there was no way he was that gorgeous. Like the first sunset you ever remember seeing.

“That beautiful huh?” His low chuckle made her swallow uncomfortably again, which only made him laugh more. “It’s past ten seconds but I think for all your hard work and-”, he grunted and shifted, making Eileen feel something very _hard_ and warm under her, watching as she took a sharp breath in, “-efforts should be rewarded with a time extension right? That’s what five star porters with _large packages_ get right?”

Her face was more than likely beat red at that point but she tried to find her composure, because it was also rather hilarious. She should have seen something like that coming, pardon the phase. Despite finding something he said a bit funny, she’s still a bit unsure of everything happening. He may have touched her, but she was so touch starved and scared of skin to skin contact; of how her breaking mental state might react to finally being able to really _feel_. She wanted it more than anything.

Her hand writhed together briefly, as if in an eternal debate between the mind and the body, before finishing what they started. She cupped his cheeks, eyes flickering between his eyes and his lips as his own did so on her face. She got close enough to feel his breath, warm and inviting; a sinful temptation.

She gave him an invitation of her own, a soft whisper almost against his lips. “I’m sorry.” Simple and clear, nothing he could make a joke with.

But of course, he would tell anyone and everyone he could at any time of day, he was Higgs _fucking_ Monaghan and this world was his playground. Sliding his hands a bit higher and gripping her hips, he pressed up a bit with his own and growled seductively, “Sorry, for what exactly? It’s taking you so, _long_ , I can’t seem to remember.”

Groaning, from either how good it felt to be so close to another person, or from sheer annoyance at the fact he really did always have something to say. It was fucking irritating. “I dunno, I can’t seem to remember either. My memory is awful, all this chiriliam.” She looked down for a few seconds before staring back into his eyes. Blue as the Beach. “You’ll just have to explain everything all the time, with a mouth like that I guess it won’t be that hard.”

His apparently very interesting mouth formed a grin, just the left side, an almost sinister looking one. He liked the attitude this one had. Knew she was almost completely untouchable, their unique bond keeping them both in a constant state of life and death. A real life Schrödinger's cat type of deal gone bad. Both bound together in life and death, _til death do we part huh_? Guess his life isn’t too bad, he’s got two “wives”. His smile turned particularly vicious looking as he snaked his hands up her shirt, inviting a flurry of cold air on her tender skin. Her sharp gasp and frozen stature making him laugh.

“Easy darlin’, just go with the flow.” Higgs just seemed to ooze confidence, like he’d done this hundreds of times. She only wished she could be that sure of herself. Both of them were enjoying it quite a bit, so when neither of them stopped, going beyond their own boundaries. The feeling of being touched was euphoric; for her it was new and exciting, and for him, it was about gaining control and forcing her under him, so to speak.

So for now he’d reward her and earn her trust, a touch one to break but he could see the cracks even though his own. _Fragile, but not that fragile huh_? An ominously harsh laugh came from his throat that caught them both off guard.

He saves himself the agony of having to go on with their verbal battle and shoves his hand down her pants and starts rubbing her. She cried out and just held onto his shoulders, not knowing what to do except to just let him do as he pleased. Not that it wasn’t pleasing her too, but this was obviously dubious at best, he was a scoundrel and Eileen was sure he’d love being called that. Too afraid to say anything; whether it would ruin the moment or piss him off, she just held everything in, even her whines of pleasure.

He leaned in and licked up her neck, stopping just at her jaw before breathing in deeply and pulling away. She couldn’t help but moan when he did so and earned herself a grin from him. Something horrible flashes in her mind suddenly, making her feel more than a bit embarrassed, mostly with herself. The idea of his hand on her neck instead of his tongue. She tried to rationalize with herself it made sense, what’s she been through but at the same time...she just sounded like she was trying to justify something akin to a drug habit. Foolish and a bit ridiculous.

Groaning out, “T-touch me, Higgs, please.” Her face was a fire in the darkness, a hidden respite under the snow covered rock. He couldn’t help but stare, smile long gone from his face, something deep in his gut gnawing at him. He felt like he was losing it, his sanity or his control.

In her own moral dilemma and hasty thoughts, she had forgotten about their connection. He was staring her down with a darkened gaze. Knowingly. Predatory and on the battlefield, calculating and watching their next target from the shadows of his hood. His hand freeing itself from her waist, inching slowly up her clothed chest, the other still moving in and out of her.

“Darlin’, I am touching you, in a _lo_ _oo_ _t_ of ways.”

It’s when she grabs his hand from her hip, lifts it to her throat and says “I meant...touch me like you did.” He’s almost chokes on his own spit, but obliges with a twisted smile forming. He squeezes down harshly on her neck, feeling himself get even harder in the process.

She’s near passing out when he violently finished her off with his hand. Trying to hold her steady as they both breathe heavy, hard to do so high up on the mountain. “Well damn, guy can’t say no to uh, an apology like _that_ , can he?” Shifting but not finding a position comfortable enough with her body which was growing heavier by the second. “Aw shit, are you going and passing out on me again? That ain’t exactly a fair deal. I wasn’t done punishing you yet.” He sounded like a child whose toy was taken away but they knew exactly where to find it later regardless of where it was hidden.

His taunts faded from her hearing and all she could focus on was the way his face was moving in the dark. His teasing words or whatever else he must be bitching about would make her laugh if she had the energy too. She was just too tired, and he was rather warm, the cold always made her fall asleep. It was always the same back at Bridges; cold and isolating, sleeping to pass the time. This time however, it wouldn’t be alone. Her last few garbled thoughts got through to Higgs but he just ignored them and laid back; nothing he could do, too tired of carrying her and in the snow it would be rather annoying.

Amelie didn’t need to know what he was doing with her quite yet, if she hadn’t already found out. The way she seems to know everything that goes on. “ _Die-Hardman,”_ , he murmured to himself, “No way the general hasn’t told Amelie and precious fucking little Sammy about everything.” He’d just have to stay off the Beach until he knew the girl in his arms could handle herself if something went wrong. If their connection gets broken, it’d be catastrophic. There was the possibility that Amelie couldn’t break that chain, but without knowing for sure, he wasn’t going to take the chance yet.

For now he’d rest as long as he could, aiming for a new personal best. He’s done enough anyways right? Deserves his bit of break to bask in the glory of a brand new power that no one else has ever even conceived. His prize. But something was missing, how would she exist without Amelie knowing everything about it? Considering how she’s completely orchestrated everything herself; from the very beginning of Bridges as Bridget. Something else was bothering him but, he would have to think about that later. Maybe he could sneak into a Bridges facility as Peter Englert with his _wife_ accompanying him for the first time. The only problem being her high levels of chiriliam, they would have to go somewhere distant, with regular spikes in chiral density. That would be far, and having to escort _her_. He shuddered at the thought.

Giving her head a mock sympathy pat while it rests on his shoulder, he got as comfortable as he could. Easy to relax when you tell yourself it’ll be worse next time you try to rest. A comfort in knowing things are only going to get more difficult. A strange desire to be wrapped in the confines of pain and trepidation. The kind of craving you only feel when you know you have nothing left to lose, the call of the void. A shameless addiction to the feeling of death about to open the door, yet the knob never fully finishes turning. He embraced it. It made him alive.

ℵ


	3. Today, Tomorrow, Tombic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song for the chapter is Tonight, Tonight, Tonight by Low Roar.

ℵ

Frantic. Rushed. Every visit cut brief, seemingly less and less time with each trip. She would be there when he awoke, other situations were different. She had starting delivering things, training hard to be a Porter; the best she could. Half there on reputation alone; adopted daughter of Die-Hardman and the one person to receive such a sheer number of likes from the _h_ _eart_ man. Not to mention her high level of DOOMs and the way each visit of hers to any terminal caused near chiral blackouts, well, why wouldn’t word get around?

It was rather humorous the way she sauntered a bout and tried to act so mature  and headstrong .  Clearly still an innocent child; Eileen  Vestergaard Ericson,  a rather lengthy and old fashioned name for the spitfire.  A lways too busy trying to force herself to grow up in a world where time was currently of the essence.  Throwing herself into work that was even more dangerous because of what she  _was_ .  Yet at the same time, it was the perfect occupation for her.  Not as good a porter as their one and only Sam  _Porter_ Bridges, but she was on par with Fragile Express; another big name with good results.  They had the big three of deliveries and it was just enough to get by, but again, time was short.

He mostly ignored her childish antics, opting to at least attempt to be  authoritative when he would tell her to replace or clean up whatever she had done.  Usually it was  a favorite of hers; popcorn. It covered his couch and floor mats in a gross sheen of grease. Luckily,  _or_ _perhaps_ _not_ , for him, his frequent visitor and tormentor had a b ig soft spot in her heart for him.

Die-Hardman may want to have his head for how often she visits, but he does truly appreciate the company. Not many others would make the long trip just to watch a movie, or talk about the  scenarios in which chiral density levels during the Cretaceous Period  affected things like evolution and well, that was another debate entirely .  A r ather intelligent young woman,  who never really stopped to think about  more  personal and emotional topics. He sensed, perhaps, that she was r a ther broken.  Not many people got let in, and even he wasn’t allowed to see the real her. She kept everyone at  a distance .  Close enough in the  murky waters by the shore but never close enough to dock the boat.

Stopping briefly to check a log regarding the impending storm he saw on the horizon, he sends a message to Sam. “ _Do be careful out there. It’s looking particularly nasty near me_ _so I can only imagine what it’s like for you currently_ _._ _I fear that chiral levels are growing higher. Trouble may be afoot_.”

Heartman had been growing increasingly worried the longer Eileen was missing and in the hands of the Homo Demens terrorist leade r, Higgs Monaghan.  The man was frightful and he could only imagine the things that might happen now that’s he’s  become  connected to her .  Her DOOMs, it had most of them pulling their hair out in frustration. The utter contradictions to everything the research involving it showed  how little they really understood about the Death Stranding . It was  _nothing_ like normal high levels of DOOMs.  Her Beach, well, that certainly wasn’t normal either.  The way she had described it gave him shivers each time. He hoped to never have the displeasure of visiting it someday.

Stroking the spine of a few books on the shelf, he grabbed a favorite of hers.  _On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,_ _also known as_ _the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life_ .  Quite the title but nonetheless, a classic by Charles Darwin.  Her favorites were anything to do with evolution and the development of scientific exploration, how they changed so drastically in short amounts of time.  _Time_ .  _What a peculiar thing_ , he thought to himself.

The  growing blizzard was almost in full bloom outside. Covering the world around him in a glaring white shroud.  It was tragically beautiful and pulled a bit at his heartstrings.  Both storms, the one beyond the glass of his home and the one inside the warped shape of his heart, seemed timeless in contra st.

“Two minutes remaining.”

Not much time now, he went to turn away from the shelf but found his hand almost stuck in place. An unconscious move his body seemed to deem important. He let his eyes travel back up to where his finger was pointing. Another favorite, but this one, a gift. She had pestered him for weeks, trying to get any sort of information out of him. His birthday present. One of the only ones he’d gotten in recent years that wasn’t a rather tacky gift. Heartfelt. Meaningful. She had picked it out of hundreds of thousands of things she could have possibly given him.

A miraculously  almost  untouched copy of  _Don Quixote de La Mancha_ ,  written all the way back in 1605.  The story of Don Quixote was a timeless wonder and he loved the tale.  He only laughed when he unwrapped it, which had made her laugh as well;  thought for vastly different reasons .  The irony of the story, he felt, was comparative to Don Quixote’s falseisms of living a life of knighthood and how it correlated to  her pretend ing to be anything but a child.  Living a fantasy.

But he wasn’t making a mockery of her, or blaming her for the way she felt. She must have been miserable, trapped in her tower.  Just as he felt sometimes, admittedly  more so today  than usual .

“ One minute remaining. Please hold onto something secure.”

Briskly walking and finishing the touches on an important document, he got ready to lie down and prep himself for a trip to the Beach.  But as he sat back, the taunting spine of Don Quixote called to him. He remembered what she said the last time he saw her. It felt rather silly at the time, just  another strange phrase to shrug off, but now it felt rather ominous. Her words stabbing into his gut like a knife  on the slow and steady.  At the time Eileen had just shrugged her own shoulder and said it was just  a metaphor ic question , but he knew that there was a hidden meaning. Not only  was something  swelling in the gleam of her eye, but the way  the eyes can open secrets one hides within.

_Heartman._ She had turned and looked right at him with a big smile,  chiral induced tears  streaming down her face .  _If I could give half my life for it, would you_ _tell me_ _the_ _tale from your heart_ ?

If anyone were to question him about it now, what that had meant. He’d say the same thing, it must have truly just been some question of a poetic nature about his past. He might never admit that it made him feel exceptionally fragile. _But not that Fragile_. He whispered to himself before reaching out suddenly, flipping over his hourglass to the final beat of his failing heart. The shrill song of the machine showing that he’s flatlined again. Death embraced him like an old companion once more.

ℵ

T hey came to a stop at the base of the mountain near the World's End Miracle Pool, a nice little place she was dying to go stop by and take a dip in. Her new boss however, had other ideas. His quota of walking until you needed chiralium legs was about to piss her off.  It was e ver since they descended that fucking mountain top.  His  snide attitude was rubbing off on her, and only fueled her own budding insecurities and short fuse.  Eileen seriously wanted to slap his head clean off his shoulders the next time he stopped so  abruptly if he was just going to complain that she was the slow one.

Which is why she screamed like a banshee when he did stop rather  expectantly and caused her to run into his back.  She watched as he mockingly cleaned out his ear, feigning how delicate they were. 

He had said his next words with such pride, she was sure to morrow would be the perfect opportunity to murder him in his sleep. “ If you keep slamming into me like that, y ou might have to apologize to me again,  _good little girl_ .” With a wink he kept on, leaving her to glare daggers at him.

This was possibly just Hell on Earth and she hoped that this trip  w est ward  trying to beat Sam there was going to happen without  m any problems.  It gave her plenty of time to try and think of how to stop Higgs, but she  didn’t want to dwell on  it . He was linked to her now and thinking about things like that for more than a few moments was dangerous. The stronger the feeling, the stronger the signal.  It was a two way system unfortunately for her. His thoughts were dark and brooding and just being near him was exhausting. She felt like his backup battery but he never let it get more than half full before using it all up again.

The good news however, they were both proficient in chiriliam control. Both having high levels of DOOMs, hers a bit more than his at this point,  paired with his telekinesis made the trip relatively easy.  At least, so far. She wasn’t a fan of having to do stealth mission s , slipping through the seams without anyone noticing. So it was nice to know her partner in crime had connections to all kinds of sides.  He made it easy to move out in the world;  even in the backdrop ,  not to mention how he can snap away Timefall at his leisure.

She was sure he was eating this up, so she made a show of dramatically rolling her eyes and stumbling a bit before marching on.  He could say anything he wanted but it really didn’t mean she had to listen, not that she would. She may not be related  to her father , but she had her Die-Hardman family pride.  She wasn’t gonna let some Pharaoh wanna be ta lk down to her .

“ Hey, Higgs. What’s the deal with the Egyptian stuff anyways?” She was curious, might as well ask since there’s nothing better to do during the long trek.

He just grinned. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Stepping around her when she slowed to frown at him, he had a predatory smirk now. “ Oh honey, don’t make that face. We don’t always get what we want, when we want. Besides, you’re smart enough, find a way to look through our  _link_ .” He had pointed between them before continuing on.

She  _really_ didn’t like him, did she mention that? Hoping he could feel the waves of exasperation flowing from her, she followed.  The  sun was going down quickly, hidden behind a chiral sky full of ominous rainbows and black strands.  _At least they weren’t black rainbows_ . She hated to imagine what kind of doomsday sign that would be.

“ We’ll find shelter soon, look for a cave or something. One more mountain top and we’ll be coming up near our final  destination .” He turned to look at her, the shadows of his hood making his face look a bit terrifying.  There was a cold excitement she felt that rippled through her. Sometimes was getting him worked up.

She admitted to herself in this moment that he was everything the world feared. Ruthless, dangerous, and a stone-cold killer. If she wasn’t saved by this crimson thread, she wasn’t sure she was ready to think about what he would’ve done to her a long time ago.

“ Don’t worry darlin’.” His eyes almost illuminating in the dark. “It’d be so much worse than you could  _ever_ imagine. I can show you some time…”

She made a  disgusted face and looked away, not wanting to lo c k eyes with him. Whether it was the forming redness across her cheeks from the embarrassment or a lack of a  good reply, she just couldn’t handle it.

So he just licks his lips and bite s a bit on  his bottom, as if deep in thought. “ So be good, got it?”  He had stopped fully now, slightly turned  towards her,  his figure slim and poised .  He was debating turning around, maybe to stop there for the night and get a warm fire started; or just to keep the conversation  _hot_ .

Her back tensed and every muscle in her legs screamed at her to run. That the prey wasn’t fooling the hunter anymore. But she couldn’t. She  _wouldn’t_ . She had to keep on keeping on, right? “ Yeah.” She replied obediently. “I got it.”

Higgs sensed something sarcastic in her body language, almost like she was mocking him. He let it go of course, being the gracious ly good guy he was.  There’d be plenty of time to stop later regardless. Right now they just had to fast track it to the coast. Getting to Edge Knot City as fast as possible was the only thing he cared about.  He had big plans in motion, and he needed to find a way to explain all of this to Amelie. He was sure she was getting suspicious by now. It had been quite some time since his last trip to the Beach. For a frequent  flier like himself, this would be more than  unusual.

Moving on from grass to snow again, Eileen wasn’t sure she really enjoy ed going cold, then warm, then back to freezing.  Reminded her of a certain someone in present company. Usually she could drive on roads to make deliveries or use some handy zip lines. But her captor liked to keep things on the down low. Traveling like a snake in the grass, slow  and ready to strike from below.  He was cunning and devious, she wondered just how he ended up like that.

She could feel him now though, mulling over something heavy.  The unease and hesitant feelings, she had no idea what they might be about. Were they about Sam? Her? Or something greater?  It felt too familiar, the vague ghost of a name on her tongue. It tickled the back of her brain but the more she tried to hone in on it, the farther it went from her. She just huffed instead of asking, not particularly feeling like  starting another argument .  She followed his footsteps; in a line up the  bitter hills and through the slush.  T he sun  becoming obscured  behind them, it did nothing to help with the  building  cold around her. She really hated being in the mountains.

“Uh, h-hey Higgs?” Great. Now she sounded stupid. Bet he was enjoying the fact he made her feel so uncomfortable. If he asked why she stuttered, she’d blame it on the cold. He was quite and didn’t respond, now she just felt stupid for even wanting to ask him something. She had asked Sam but, that felt different. Trying again, “You in there? Hello? Higgs?”

He just hmm’d and kept walking, clearly focused on something else in the back of his own mind.  He barely stopped for anything, only ever if they really needed a break,  or to try and break her . He was very much a busy little bee.

“Well, I was just wondering if you mind. If I hum or sing something, not loudly, obviously.” She played with the zipper on her cuff a bit.  Not really sure if she should  press the issue or not. She could always just sing it in her head, either way he’d be front and center for the show.

Either he didn’t even bother to answer  again or he answered so quietly she couldn’t hear him.  So, to add insult to injury, and for a sweet slice of payback. She mustered up all the willpower and mental energy she could because letting lose a string of horrible screaming in her mind.  _I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU. I HATE YOU. I SAID I HA-_ at  the moment of  that final  unspoken  wailing,  Higgs had turned around one arm holding an ear and the other grabbing her by the collar. He lifted her just a bit off the ground and was snarling, filled with rage.  Flakes of snow falling from her dangling feet.

“ The  _fuck_ is your problem? We’re knee deep in shitsville trying to navigate  this winter wonderland  without any heat pads and you’re screaming in my ears.” He pushed her hard  and let her fall into the  frigid  powder , before stalk ing off. “Just shut the  _fuck_ up.”

She jumped up and starting cleaning off the freezing bits that stuck to her backside. _Fine_. She mocked him in her head. _Be a dick, dick._ Not that she had been acting any better. So, she just poked the sleeping bear one more time. Just for fun. “Do you think you’re gonna get a nice pyramid made just for you when this is all over? Be buried like an Egyptian?” She tried to say it almost so quizzically, that he wasn’t sure she was being overly sarcastic on purpose or was simply that uneducated.

He really wasn’t sure, so instead, he screamed the most unholy howling he ever had. The echo bounced all around them like a hurricane, before fleeting off into the distance. More than likely creating a few more ghost stories all by a man named Higgs  Monaghan.

ℵ

Sam wasn’t so surprised to hear he looked a bit under the weather when he reached Heartman. The road there had felt all too tiring and treacherous. He worried about what anything farther West was going to be in store for him. There was that storm going on too. He tried to contact Deadman, or Die-Hardman, or Hell, anyone, to let them know he made it just before it hit. The power kept flickering but it was steady enough to keep the heat on and his host was kind enough to entertain him for a bit before letting him use whatever facilities he wanted. He’d be stuck after all, with the quirky 21 cycle man, for a day or two he expected.

His thoughts kept going back to Eileen and the way he struggled against both her wiggling and his own pack. He tried  to protect her , he really did, but he fucked up again.  Her father hadn’t even chewed him out for it, which somehow honestly made it worse.  The silent and heavy breathing of a broken man on the end of the line bothered him.  Sam tried to tell him he was sure she wouldn’t get hurt, she was a smart kid, but that only seemed to both of them like empty  promises . Higgs was a dangerous man, there was no telling just what he might do to her.

Regardless, that was all in the past now, he had to focus on getting his ass westward and putting a stop to Higgs  and f inding Amelie  before he did. K eeping the madman away from her; that was his main objective.

For now, he’d take a few days rest with Heartman by the lake. They’d chat and swap ideas, finding the company rather nice but strange.  He liked the guy, truly. Didn’t seem to want to force any kind of friendship and just let the conversation flow naturally; whether or not he replied.  The only thing he wasn’t entirely sure about was his décor, but he wasn’t much of a home decorat or.

A message managed to come in on his cuff links while waiting for Heartman to come back to the world of the living. It was that Peter guy again,  _ he wants another pizza _ ? One had to wonder why a guy just ordered pizzas all the time,  was never there to pick it up, and the weird way he spoke in the e-mails. Guess he couldn’t judge him too harshly. Wasn’t like he was that big of a weirdo,  all things considered .

The defibrillator buzzed sharply, bringing its recipient out of the cold stillness of a Beach, and back to the  warm but darkened room. “ Ah, Sam. I trust everything’s been to your liking?”

“ Yeah, sure thing. Thanks for the beers too.”  He had delivered those, but didn’t expect to get to share.

“ Not a problem. I actually had those ordered just in case you got stuck here, or wanted to stop by.” He was fiddling with his own cuff links. Another visit to the Beach, no  luck but not surprising . “The storm was already fast approaching when you were passing by the Weather Station. I was lucky to get the order in on time before you left.”

Grunting  in response ,  he turned back to reading the message from the pizza lover. He didn’t know what  half the word s meant  in this one but it  all sounded  old school.  Maybe  some of it was  some sort of slang . “Hey, Heartman. What’s tombic mean?”

“That’s a rather interesting yet ghastly topic. It’s related to graves; as in Egyptian ones. Sepulchral; or in simpler terms, related to a tomb or interment. Not a very common word actually. Well, not anymore.” He turned, to see Sam with a perplexed look on his face. “Why do you ask?”

“ It’s nothing, it’s jus-”, when he heard the word Egyptian, he felt a wave of  nausea settle in. “-just something bugging me about the person who sent it. That’s all.”  He shifted his attention, suddenly feeling a tad bit curious about the whole ordeal. “Just what’s the history with all that tomb shit?”

And like a well versed scholar, Heartman got to work on giving him all the details. From the beginning of the early Dynastic Period of Egypt, until he almost fell asleep near the end, when he was discussing the Egyptian Empire. Swearing it was going to get more interesting when he bypassed the lesser known Menpehtyre Ramesses I, also known as Ramses, with a more well known king, Ramesses the Great. Ozymandias.

ℵ

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter, not a particular favorite, but it's fun to try and write from all their perspectives.  
> I think Heartman is a fantastic character and I'm debating doing a story for him as well.
> 
> Thanks again for reading!


	4. Vanadium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song for this chapter is Nobody Else by Low Roar.

ℵ

They visit Amelie, Higgs growing too impatient to not be able to freely  jump  about .  They’ ll be on the Beach for a while.  He told her they were taking a trip,  a little “v acation” to the other side. She’d need to stay put  when they arrived, and let him go handle something important. They both knew he was talking about Amelie. Eileen wasn’t so sure why he wanted to be secretive about it. All things shared between them considered,  i t was wasn’t like either of them had much to hide.  But he did whatever he wanted, she supposed. So fighting him wasn’t worth her time.

The empty stillness of the Beach with a grey sky makes her shiver to the bone.  At least it isn’t her Beach. That hellscape of pain and an emptiness so vast and hungry, the mere thought of her caused tears to stream down her cheeks. She wasn’t sure if it was from fear or traveling through the seam.

She sighed and stared out at the grey water. Littered with massive carcasses of whales, the decaying shells of blue crabs, and a tang in the air. Heavy like the stench of death and salt water. It burned deep within her lungs.

“Don’t cry now darlin’. Amelie just might want to meet you, gotta look good for America’s _savior_ .”  His  malevolent chuckling,  similar to the ghostly touch of a hand on your neck, when your back is against the wall and you’re alone,  she hated it.

“ We all cry Higgs.” She wiped her face with her sleeves. “ _We_ all do.  A ll the time.”

She heard him snort  and say something like “it was just a joke”  as he walked away, an arm resting on his BB’s pod.  His swagger showed a lot, more so that he didn’t care but his ego was stung anyway.  Nothing really seemed to please him except total obedience. She was anything but that.  Knowing it was best to just stop pushing her luck  however ,  since  it seemed he was getting less tolerant of her antics the more time they spent tethered together. 

The  porous rocks around the shoreline seemed too irritating to try and sit on.  O pt ing instead to go find a nice dry enough patch of grass to go sit on while she waited for him to come back.

It was nice to just kick back and relax here with her back turned to the Beach. She could at least pretend she was on a real vacation instead of near  an Extinction Entity. Someone who was trying to tie all the KNOTs of America together, but the plan all along was just to get the pieces of kindle together and light it ablaze.  Just burn it all down  and let it fall to pieces.

Her mind went back to Higgs.  A tugging bright and swirling feeling filled her head. Like she was swimming in a cloud of energy.  Whatever it was, he seemed pleased. She still wasn’t sure why a man with such an  egotistical view of himself would want to speed up the end of the world.  It felt odd to imagine him bowing, metaphorically or literally, to anyone. But she guessed the fact that woman could grant you whatever power s you wanted, she might  kiss the ground they walk on too.  Sh e felt a tinge of something else there, like the last drop of rain falling and hitting a  dying plant . So that’s how he felt. He was the last drop, her coup de grâce, or at least, that’s what he  thought .

The crunching rocks and sound of the gritty sand made her turn around. She hadn’t felt him come back, lost in her own thoughts. Even as she shifted her eyes around, something told Eileen she was going absolutely mad. Someone  _had_ been there, she felt their presence.  An energy not that much unlike when pressure changes, had been shifting briefly before disappearing.  Gripping blades of grass tightly in her fists, a rather uncomfortable lump formed in her throat.  A bad taste in her mouth, like bile,  the air around smelled just as bad. The stench of the dead.  Strangely enough, it hadn’t felt evil, but it was more than unsettling to think someone had been watching her.  Spirit or man or beast.

When Higgs  finally  returns and finds her blankly staring off into the ocean, holding herself tightly in a ball; he debates kneeling and shaking her gently out of it. It seemed too sappy, instead, he places a boot on her shoulder and leans back. Pressing roughly into her arm  and wobbling her , making her yelp which causes him to  smirk . 

“ Let’s get a move on. Stop looking so gloomy! Times are looking up. We can blast around at our hearts content.  I’m starving. Say, how do you like your pizza?”  
  
“You just assume I like pizza? What if I’ ve never had it?” She pushed him off and watched as he mockingly kicked at her face, a bit too close for comfort.  The smell of dirt fresh on his boots. “ Also, I remember someone telling me to dig deep enough if they want answers. So you can take that and shove it up your ass.”

“ With pleasure darlin’.” His eyes gleaming. “You can help me, ah, dig deep.”

She made a face at him as if to say, _are you fucking serious right now_? That only made him laugh garishly. Large sharp guffaws which were probably fake but definitely exaggerated. Walking straight passed her, he waves him arm as if to call a loyal follower to march to battle. She’s close behind with a quickness, not really wanting to be told twice anymore. As she nears him, he puts his hand into a fist and slowly twirls around to face her.

“Homeward we go chickadee. Click your little heels three times for me.”

Before the snap of his fingers,  his  other hand had slipped behind on her lower back. A pointless power move on his part. As long as he imagined them both moving between the seams, they could move  from within  a distance from one another. He  know he seemed almost the symbolic and sentimental type, wanting to let her know, she was in  _his_ garden. His Eve now.  _He_ was the snake, the apple, and Adam all at once;  and he was God too.

The return to his hideout with a satisfying pop made him feel good. Back home where he can monitor Sam and then be nothing more than a flash step away from watching him live. He left his plaything at the entrance to gawk at his abode. Guessing she didn’t approve of the mess, he just looks to her and wiggles his eyebrows, “ _Niiice_ right? I got a real man scientist vibe going.”, before getting in his chair and leaning back.

“ I was thinking of ordering pizza.  Maybe  get a bottle of  _cham_ -pagne?”  Popping the “p” rather loudly and turning back to give her a rather risqué look. “ Oh, y ou got a preference on toppings? I’m a classic guy myself but I enjoy a bit of the fancy stuff  now and then . They’ve got this rather succulent pork that’s to die for.” 

He’s messing about on his cufflink now,  almost like he’s going to ignore her .

“Actually if I could just get a nice serving of where the fuck are we, that’d be nice.”

He laughed low, mostly just breathing air out his nose. “Real cute. But I’m sure it’s fairly obvious, you should know, dig deep down in your own ass this time. Welcome to my pyramid.”

She snorted.  _Of course_ , he can make fun of himself but  if anybody else  does, then there’s trouble.  “ And no.” She didn’t care how  rude she sounded. “I don’t want any pizza.”

His face soured as he mimicked her. “Alright but hey, don’t blame me if you go hungry. I’m an, eat the crust and all, type of guy. This meal won’t have any bones to throw your way when you’re begging for scraps.”

“I’m not a fucking dog!” Her haired flashed wildly around her, chiriliam seeping in to the air. The lights flickered and the view of Sam Bridges heading to a terminal on the monitor faded in and out.

“You better watch yourself before your little temper tantrums get _me_ real worked up. I was dangling you on a string before with your punishment, you don’t want to see what happens if I do it for real."

“ _And_ .” A long pause with a pointed look. “ I  _freed_ you,  by the way ,  f rom your bondage!  I did! ME! ” 

H er reply  was quick and heated.  “Yeah, you did, with a new chain.” 

Grab bing her neck where  the black inky hand print  he left was , using the same hand to violently spread her fingers out at him before straightening her back and  huffing .

“ So you agree. You _are_ my dog.”

Her gaping mouth fueled his mirth and insane laughter. She felt warm and embarrassed,  wishing she could pop his head between her fingers like a grape. Whispering insults at him under her breath, she turns and walks right out the door. Leaving him to do whatever he does when he’s not busy mocking her.

He whispers  something back  too , “That leas h is for your own safety, and the safety of others, don’t go wandering off too far.”  He pauses before chucking. “Not that you  _can_ .”

ℵ

He promised Die-Hardman if anything happened, he’d find a way to make it right.  Her missing was just as devastating to him  as  it was the other few she had in her rather dull life . Eileen was one of the only ones who seemed to actively seek out his company and enjoy the strange ways  in which  he seems  to operate.  He may have been Deadman but it didn’t mean he wanted to  live  _as_ a dead man.

Only two people he knew personally had watched over the young girl growing up, with him being very late to the party. The kindness she had shown him however, made him feel a strong connection between them. Both so close to death and  in the dark side of the spectrum of life , but always trying to find something to smile about.  Even if it might kill you.

Remembering a conversation they had not long after meeting for the first time.  The director had introduced them after she returned from a lengthy delivery. The conversation was  rather short, only stopping to give her a once over to make sure she hadn’t strained anything. A nother rush job so she could go shower and rest after such a long journey.  One tiny little movement of muscles in his face when he frowned at her chiral levels  had set off the question of a lifetime . To  this da y , he kept mulling over it.

“Why so blue, man?” She had asked him. A small grin on her face as he down looked at his outfit.

“I’m quite red today, black if you want to get technical, it’s a color too. Unless of course, you consider if the total lack of color altogether, a shade without hue along side grey and white. Oh, and I’m not a blue man, I’m a dead man. Are you sure you don’t have color blindness? I’d like to have a look at your eyes sometime later perhaps. Do they have chiriliam just like your hair? It’s quite fascinating.”

She had just scratched her neck, the left side he noted, and laughed softly. “No, you’re definitely blue. All over. Or at least, that’s what it _feels_ like.”

Pulling her shades up and hiding them in her oh so fascinating hair, she decided to start their friendship off with a big bang. She thought he was quirky and reminded her of another man with a tell-tale name. “Tell you what, figure out what I mean by blue and you win a prize!”

“Eileen. Don’t bother Deadman with your antics, he’s here as your new doctor and-”

“Oh no, director! It’s quite alright. I do enjoy a good brain teaser every so often. Besides, nothing like a puzzle from the puzzling mind of such an interesting individual. The psyche can be rather revealing, don’t you think?” He fixed his tie and stood a bit straighter. “I humbly accept your challenge. I’ll finish conducting the evaluation and get right to work on figuring out just how I’m so blue.”

The entire rest of her check up had yielded interesting results. The way Die-Hardman hovered like a mother bird with her egg. The girl too was rather unique. She had a quick wit with a silver tongue, but a fiery attitude right under it. Like the burning end of a poker left in the hot coals of a dying smoldering fire.

He snapped out of the memory, activating his cufflink to check the message he had just received. Heartman  replied .  _No good then_ , seems like Sam had already left and the storm had cleared. He was hoping to get a hold of him before he moved on but  he’ll have to wait until Sam make s his way back through the snow.  There were things he needed to speak with both of them about. About Mama.

He looked up, watching the director pace back and forth. Drifting back into the past. Their last words, Eileen and himself, they talked about something that seem more dangerous now than it had at the time. She asked about Beaches. About what her own mother might have been like. What did it mean to have or be a mother? What made someone a mother? Simply their gender? A feminine instinctive bond that drove a person to do anything for their offspring? She’d never know and that suited her just fine, but it made something feel like it was missing. A book with a few pieces from the middle ripped out.

Lastly, she told him she feared only one thing. The inverted rainbow. Many of them hung thick and heavy in the skies of her own Beach. She wouldn’t say anything else about them except that they were like the eyes of great gods that have yet to open. Made of bad feelings and thoughts; she viewed them as the subconscious dread collective of the people connected to her.

“A bad sign. They’re twisted by a curse.” She told him while shrugging her jacket back on. “Reminds me of rotting umbilical cords.”

He never did figure out what she meant by him being blue. But his research into the color blue on scientific levels led him to something interesting. There is _no_ blue in the inverted rainbow.

ℵ

“Honestly? What a motherfucker. See how he likes this, _motherfucker_!” Eileen’s cried of anger rang out in the open air. She didn’t care who heard them either, not like many people would be around.

This was the most aggravated she’d been in a long while. His entire everything was just so stressful to be around. She hated the knowing smirk on his face, stupid smiles. Hated the way it made her feel. Useless but still around. Anger but giddy inside. She had to catch her breath more than half the time he looked at her. Just seeing his eyes, not able to even notice whether he wore his mask or not, she was absolutely indulging herself in his gaze. The way he moved and sauntered, she absorbed it with every ounce of her attention like seeing the moon for the first time. He probably believed himself to be a god so much, in some way, he became one. A celestial being unrestrained by its gravitational restraints.

His name is always hushed and likened to a secret, but he hears it all the same. Watchful eyes always on the prowl for a sighting of his gold stripes. The legend and legacy that would be told about Higgs Monaghan. His life had been extraordinary, for better or for worse. The man was anything but a mere mortal man.

A deep and subtle pain started in her gut. Maybe she should’ve grabbed something before storming out after all. _Hopefully he had something other than pizza_. She thought before stumbling while trying to balance on rocks no bigger than a baseball. It felt like this thing between them was starting to stretch. This bond between them. She was starting to think it felt more like a noose about to tighten. So she moves on, feet carrying her farther from the other side.

Higgs who was so lovingly thought of was kicking back and thinking about the warm gooeyness of a fresh pizza delivered by their good friend and neighbor, Sam Porter Bridges. _Oh Sammy, the fun we’ll be having soon_ , he thought, licking his cracked lips.

His feet were swaying as he laid back in his chair. “Everything’s gonna be nice and easy for a while. So long as Fido does what the master commands.” His eyes smiled more than his mouth did. A dark look twinkling in them. “Wonder what she’s up t-”

As he said it, he knew something was wrong. It felt like a knife in his gut. He pulled frantically at his shirt and there was nothing there. Jumping up and all but flying over to the BB pod, he yanked it off the table and hooked himself up. The red cord was back. It looked like someone was pulling it hard in one direction. It felt like Hell and suddenly it started to look like something from the fiery pits. It was pulsing and twitching but held in place. He doesn’t want to risk teleporting to her, gritting his teeth hard at the idea of having to run after her. To actually have to chase her down. There’s no telling just how far she’s gone if she doesn’t even know.

He might find solace in the fact not many people make the visit down to ole Peter’s but he was about to scream if he had to walk over one more goddamn rock. He should relocate, somewhere nicer. _Maybe by the seashore,_ he laughed bitterly to himself. When he caught up to her, he was going to do more than strangle her. She’d get a knife down her throat for sure. All he wanted was a nice smoking hot pizza and a lengthy spy session on Sam.

As her wild hair comes into view, he dons a devious grin on his face. As if to call out for his pet, he whistles high and sharp. Laughing manically as she turns around, the pressure releasing slowly on their tether, he makes his way quicker to her. She’s panicking and it’s only amusing him more. He told her didn’t he? She can try and run but he’ll keep coming every single time.

If this had been a more romantic coupling, two who shared in their mutual adoring feelings, the sight of a man chasing his partner and the shrieks of her unrestrained might not be so bad. But here? Her cursing screams were genuine and frantic. She damned and rued the day he was born, but he’s heard that and much, much worse. Promises and threats of violence if he hurt her, and he only offered honeyed words with a veil of threatening disposition.

Forgetting merely because she was a mindless animal during a hunt, he used her thoughtlessness to his advantage. Appearing before her out of thin air, he leaned in and shouted “Boo!” in her wide eyed face as she crashed into him. He embraced her deeply, similar to a lover finding his better half. As he leaned in and took a long, drawn out breath in, then whispered something into her ear that made tears run down her puffy blushed cheeks.

He would go after the other mask if she kept it up, he had reminded her. She’d have nowhere to go and could only watch as he killed Die-Hardman. If she tried to stop him and got herself killed, it would kill them all.

So for now, she concedes. Raises up a white flag and accepts the conditions of the mission. Play nice, be good, bark for every meal. She felt shame as the river kept on flowing, both beside her and on her weathered face.

He brings  them back  to their shelter,  and tell ing her to go to bed and be good, she doesn’t want him to have to go  retrieve her again. “ Good little puppies stay by their masters feet but I’ll be generous and let you have the bed first.” 

He pointed without looking to the “bed” in the corner.  Missing her face entirely as she rolled her eyes and took a step forward. As she did so, she saw something faded, written on the wall. It wasn’t that she couldn’t read it, the fading not all that bad, but it was the contents of what it said.

_Fragile_ _forget you ever met me_ .

Suddenly a lot of things make sense. She starts to feel fragile,  _ but not that Fragile _ . Never that one. She’d never be her or anything like her;  that woman was beyond twice the person she was. Careless and selfless, always out there for the people.  She was quiet but kind and anything but fragile too . She was starting to feel like Higgs had  actually loved  her, but after getting drunk with power... something changed.

Now he planned on bringing about the end of existence and somehow he expects that same person he destroyed physically to come back and read a goodbye note? She wasn’t sure what the Hell he was thinking, if at all.

A pooling dread within her makes her turn to see he’s watching her with wild eyes. Those are dangerous things to think about, so she pretends to move on and find something else even more interesting.

But he dismisses her shortly after and turns back to his screens. The flickering lights just barely illuminating his hair and giving it a strange ghostly white color. He had dimmed the lights when she left, leaving them in near darkness with a florescent glow. It was almost comforting, but without the anxiety from knowing the watchful eye of Bridges is staring at your sleeping form. No, instead she has the Eye of Horus affixed to her. Sure it might protect her, but only for its own interests.

Bothered by the fact she was let down by the lack of reaction, she sighs and gives in. Finding herself sinking onto the military cot and suddenly feeling strange warming feelings. Looking at the laughing form of Higgs as he amuses himself by having a conversation with none other, than himself and Sam.  He was happy, actually happy but in a sick sort of way. She could feel it in her bones, it made her feel good but also disgusted with herself. She thought about th at time as well, how he touched her, how she had felt during, and after.

Growing jealous, and perhaps just irritated over her own feelings towards him, she rolled over and attempted to get comfortable.  Between all the mixing emotions, a lack of control over the connection, her own varying  severities of reveries, she starts to feel a bit too warm.  Her body feeling rosy and ablaze.  She can’t help but want to do something about it. The sensations are overwhelming and it’s how she felt before, when Higgs was touching her.  She was breaking.

He’ s suddenly unable to focus,  mind fraying and on the verge of overflowing .  He wasn’t sure what it was at first. Was he developing such powerful emotions for Sammy boy? Or was it…? He sits up, fast enough to bypass the usual plastic sounded groan of the chair.  With a march like step, he’s over in  five quick, stiff-legged steps.  Hovering over her just so his shadow would fall like an adumbral waterfall.  She’s frozen like a deer in the headlights but he can tell, she was either planning this or hoping it would cause some sort of reaction.

“Getting busy without me sweetheart? Or just getting ready for me?” He braced himself on  the bed and the wall , letting her get a good look at his arms now that his cloak is off. “ I didn’t know it was my birthday! Can’t believe you’ve gotten me a present.  How kind. ”

Eileen tries to remove her hand and try to push him off but he grabs her hand first. Sliding his down her arm while staring right into her eyes.  His somber expression starts to turn jubilant.  Her breathing quickens and he notices; watching her throat and moving his gaze back and forth.  He reaches his destination, interlocking their fingers as he guides them both back down.  Slipping his middle finger inside her, he could just  _feel_ how warm and inviting she was.

As if almost surprising himself, making a low whine as he dipped his head to meet hers. He captured her lips roughly and with  zeal he hadn’t thought he pos s essed.  Both of their hands were cramping after a few minutes of his heavy petting but neither seemed to mind. She was losing herself  to him; a moth to a flame, a BT to a sound.  He was pulling her in with every ounce of dastardly good looks and personal resolve  he had .  He was so sure of everything, he was confidence and grace.

Removing his hand, he starts to heave after pulling back, giving them both a bit of room to recuperate. A boundary, or perhaps something deep within his mind snapped, a desire of total control and dominance. He flips her over rather violently, hearing the cot groan and the sound of skin hitting metal. A part within him wanting to care, to sweetly take her, but he was a monster and this was his way. She was a part of him so this became her way too.

The sounds of hurried hands unbuckling, and  pants slid ing down sounded like gunfire to her ears. It was the loudest thing she had ever heard in her life. Higgs had to know, nobody needed a strong mental shackle  between them to know she had never been with a man. Sure, she’d thought of Heartman, but it was never anything that could have seriously happened. Yet here she was, a terrorist for her first time.

Higgs pauses above her before positioning himself at her entrance.  Holding onto her, as if he’s made of glass and feeling the cracks from within the hourglass.  Only a matter of time.  She’s scared of him right now, _good,_ it whispers, the malevolent thing  that’s coiled in his brain.  _Break her_ , it hisses.  It’s his own voice, he recognizes it, but it’s demonic and crass. Demanding blood and pleasure, his slice of pie and everyone else’s too.  A feast fit for an atrocious king.

He presses into her swiftly and without waiting for any reaction. Eileen chokes on a scream and grasps the bars of the bed.  That’s not the same as his fingers, not at all. She wants to shove him off and yell and kick him right in the dick.  It’s so overwhelming and his own overbearing thoughts are pouring into her. The glass was full long ago, someone had been a bit too devil-may-care with the pitcher.  A half moan, half  wail slips out from his mouth and she covers it with one hand, the left one; leaving the right arm, the good one, to hold on as she was vigorously pounded into.

She’s managing about as well as she could for a few minutes,  a deep soreness creeping in, until she hears his breathing get heavy like  vog.  He leaned over her and drew in a deep breath next to her ear, “How do you like the package ma’am? It was a,  _special delivery_ .”

She wanted to laugh, roll her eyes, cry, and tell him to shut up all at once but all she could do was one. Her eyes were lolling back into her head a bit, eyelids fluttering closed as he held her chin up and strained her neck. She could almost turn to face him, but it would hurt.  Feeling him sit up just a bit without waiting for her response, he gripped her neck in his hand.  A now familiar but still  frightening habit of his.  The wringing constraint making her breath  feel  shallow and frail.  Nearing a breaking point or simply her own climax, her vision started to blur.

C hok ing her for a while  makes him feel fantastic  but it made him wonder . He sighs  almost  longingly before running a hand up his own chest and trying it on himself.  H e doesn’t think it feels the same as someone else doing it, but he’s rather curious, if he does both  of them ? So he slinks his body down over her back, removing his other hand from her waist.  He’s anxious. Both his heart and h is rhythm becom ing unstable;  unable to balance himself too well. H is arm  finds its way up her back and he  begins to choke her at the same time.

They’re connected. Bonded, right? They do things together. They’d start cumming together too, he’d make sure of that. Everything together. His. She did what he commanded. His rose in the garden, his fruit to be eaten; she was the new prize, fuck this world and fuck extinction. This wanton pleasure only meant for him, not Amelie, not Sam, no one.

After a rather violent and suffocating orgasm, _together,_ he thinks, his body falls on top of her, slightly crushing her for a minute while he tried to gather himself. His face caressed by her hair, not that unlike seaweed when it wavered like this, struggling to stay up. It reminded him of when he was on the other side after dying, floating as his “Ka” trying to find his “Ha” again. Trying to become one.

ℵ

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took me three days and I'm finally happy with the results.   
> I really struggled with this one for some reason. Thanks for reading!


	5. Iura Novit Curia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this chapter is Almost Nothing (feat. Okay Kaya) by Silent Poets.

ℵ

The original plan was to use her as a BB, a Bridge Baby; that  infantile  link to the other side.  Things never went as planned, there would always be a wrench thrown when it was going smoothly.  The mother started to bleed out, her heart rate skyrocketing and then plummeting as soon as it spiked,  the damage was done and her heart gave out.  A heartless mother  laid bare with fading warmth  while the screams of a wailing  newborn filled the room. Its white walls pristine yet confining, and the floor the same brightness but now slathered in blood, excrement, and the water s of the womb.

That day, the local chiral spikes were beyond unusual. With every scream came a black out. Each set of fresh tears bringing the power to its knees as it flickered on and off.

Die-Hardman had kept it a secret, but that day, he knew _she_ would be the death of him. He could feel the tears welling up in his eyes, great waves of a sad sort of joy had bubbled up. She was so fragile looking and he knew he shouldn’t, the guilt had already begun but he was sure; he would take care of her like his own.

Curious glances and a string of rumors began about an ex-military general who was getting a bit close to another man’s pregnant wife. Not many people had been particularly happy about the budding and forbidden romance, especially when Bridget Strand found out about it.

They had argued many days and nights about it. Growing tensions and  petty spats.  Bridget wanted, no,  _needed_ this BB to work where the other had failed.  She was concerned that if he grew too close, he would find out what she was hiding.  So many secrets unveiled and new ones formed. He would become too attached and fall in love with the mother and her child.  Which is exactly what he did.

From the moment  the mother had walked in the distribution center for the first time, he felt something between them. Some sort of ironclad tether, so strong that he was sure she felt it too. Her large blue eyes finding his immediately. They had scrunched up as she smiled wide at him; from that moment on, he too would smile proudly and as wide as the blue sky.

At first her husband had come along for the check ups. He would be there, holding her hand or grasping her shoulder, they would smile at each other but he could see there was a veil over her emotions. Subtle glances in his direction when no one else was watching. Urges to pick at her nails while shuffling her feet instead of rushing to be at her husbands side as they left. Suddenly one day the trips became more frequent under a guise of “I’m just worried about the baby!” and “I felt rather ill this week so I thought I’d come in.”

All of her vitals were perfect each time, except for a strange spike in chiral density when they got near the facility.  Then, one unfortunate day, the DOOMs nightmares began.  That’s when her visits were damn near every week. This sent the President into hysterics, she couldn’t lose the BB, lose the mother – the link, or have this cause any sort of trauma for Die-Hardman.

The worried touch of a man starved for love cause a rift between the woman and her husband. He started to show up less and less each time, despite his wife struggling to hold herself up with her rather large belly. Instead, the director took charge, feeling very much like he was the one saving someone else’s life. As he looked into her eyes, a bright and shining ocean, so unlike the horrors of a Beach, he decided no one was going to willingly sacrifice her. He would do everything in his power to save her no matter the cost.

Eventually, the woman admitted her heated and budding feelings for him, they shared what time they had together. Ignoring the looks and judgmental whispers of his coworkers, he ignored Bridget as well; they learned to live in harmony for a few months as the delivery date grew ever near. A short lived romance in the midst of a world being led to total annihilation.

This is where things go horribly wrong. Destiny or fate, whatever intangible thing that decided to rip happiness from Die-Hardman’s hands.  His new lover had started to go into labor too early, there was no time and she was rushed to the emergency room. Doctors slaved away, but her body was giving up, she was dying right before their eyes.  Even the man who couldn’t die, cursed to live and be reborn again and again on the battlefield, could hear his heart shattering into a thousands pieces. Cold and frozen, both his exterior and interior;  h e really would be a  f rigid man now.

Her last breath had been a wheezing sigh as she looked at him through the window of the door. One feeble hand outstretched, as if to say, “Come find me, I’ll be waiting”, before it fell down sharply. The machine beside her, beeping to a close,  a high pitched tolling of a bell at her passing .

From the ashes raise the phoenix, so they say, and here it happened too.  The strangled cries of an infant fighting for more air broke the heavy silence.  It cleared the fog of despair and caused everyone to cheer out, all except Die-Hardman. He could only stare at the small bundle. Being passed around from doctor to doctor, all who wore thick, heavy duty medical gloves. No one was to touch her skin, many of them too afraid to even want to. He saw them all chattering excitedly and nervously, looking up and to one another each time the lights flickered out accompanied by a shrill cry.  His eyes followed when they carried her to the cleaning station, fixated on the bits of chiriliam matter floating freely from her scalp.  The spell released when a nurse came from behind him and shook him from his thoughts.

After spending time with the baby, his Eileen, as he called her, watching over her, he decided to care for the babe instead of having her experimented on or decommissioned. The high levels of DOOMs would serve them well, there’s no way Bridget can’t see that. Despite his own developing feelings on the matter, this was the best coarse of action. Except when it became too personal. Eventually he saw her less like a potential weapon and more like a daughter, causing fights between himself and Bridget. Everything got worse when she was old enough to demand to go outside. Even starting delivery jobs despite his insistence that she refrains. The relationship between the three of them became so strained.

Then  he recalled their last moments together, before she would be branded a terrorist and closed off to him forever. Their bond severed by the guillotine of happenstance.  How he fell to the floor just like before,  when her mother died and it finally set in. A broken man falling to the floor to weep, how that’s all Sam heard  of him for a few minutes before he could compose himself.  They were just men, but in the end, there was work to be done.

ℵ

“ He’ll make it ya’know. He always comes through for the people. A tar pit, even the size of the entire country, wouldn’t stop him from reaching  through to Amelie.” She picked at her nails, actually trying to clean them but knowing it was futile. Being connected to a terrorist who wa s filthy, in more ways than one, meant she was always hav ing to  find ways to get clean . “ Why do we even have to wait around? Can’t we just go  wait at the Beach for him? ”

“ I’m getting a bit tired of your sudden bossiness. Since when did a well behaved pooch start yapping all the time?” He was resting his eyes, leaning  against the roof door of a leaning skyscraper , mentally preparing himself for a good  show before a fight.  His grand entrance, with an even grander star for the  main act .

She rolled her eyes and huffed, “Ever since I wasn’t a dog, so from the very beginning. And, I. Don’t. Yap.”

“ Could’ve fooled me. Now hush, I’m trying to meditate. Shakespeare’s biggest  p lay is about to begin.”

Really wanting to do more than just annoy him with a petty response, she sighs and kicks back instead.  Choosing to get comfortable, as much as she could on the cold rooftop, and watch down at the entrance to Edge Knot City.  Instead pretending to be waiting for the moment their prey walked out the front door.  Because i t wouldn’t do any good to get him in a bad mood before a fight,  s ince s he wasn’t sure if he would sacrifice her or use her as a shield  out of anger; both  options sounded equally as terrifying.  She was sure he would do it anyway but with him in a better mood it wouldn’t be as bad.  S he  could only hope.

But that  did  bother Higgs;  w ho was beginning to enjoy their little spats, mostly because each time he got to play a little punishment game on her. Usually it would enjoy a rather heated power play on his part, letting her know just where she belonged.

“ Look you’re being a real ray of sunshine right now. How about some more pep in your step? Maybe you could even,” he leaned in next to her after a quick jump to her side, “-give me a good luck kiss?”

She shoved him away with her good shoulder, the right one, and scoffed. “As if.”

“Aw, I’m real hurt sweetheart. I could  _die_ at there ya’know!”

With that he started an exaggerated roar of laughter.  Like a joke made funnier by the sheer  absurdity of it all  or two friends sharing an inside joke in front of the schoolyard bully. 

There was something there so suddenly, it flashed with a quickness quite similar to lightning. A flash on a clear and sunny day, quick and missable against a pale sky.  She felt him, a light in the day, a burning strike from the Heavens to the Earth.

“Sam. He’s Here.”

But Sam, who was walking up now, out of the tar filled battlefield of jelly fish like BTs, covered in sludge, he was no bully. If one was to be the villain, she looked to the man before her who had paused monologuing about his grand schemes after a hiccup inducing laughter; if anyone was one, it would be him she thought. At the arrival of their foe, her heart ached a bit, this isn’t what she had wanted months ago watching Sam’s retreating back from the glass case of Heartman’s pad.

Yet they stood there, stoic and tensed, watching on. His hurried gait as he neared the finish line. A man on a mission to reach the finish line, but what he couldn’t see was the two runners in front of him had long since broken past the tape. Knowing eyes peered at him from the sidelines with bated breath and twirling knives in their hands.

“ You weren’t wrong mutt. After all this time, you might just be worth something.” 

Turning to give her a once over, a sort of ocular frisking. Suddenly a bit more impressed with her abilities. She would be useful in gaining an upper hand. A psychic, or whatever version of it she was. If they could find a way to train her clairvoyance quickly, his problematic porter would be a problem no more. Not much time when the end of everything is just around the corner.

They waited for the rest of the time in silence. Higgs mulling things over in his own shattered psyche while Eileen tried to sort out her own  twisted thoughts . For the most part, they could keep lesser emotions to themselves now, only stronger ones breaking through like a sudden tide.  The bond between them was st able an d tenacious, but with their  combined powers growing too  rapidly , it was a delicate balance  with the inner struggle between both of their willpowers  clashing like  oil  and water . 

Both of their heads snapped up as they heard the faint echo of steel boots on metal. Seeing him walk out of the distribution center, very confused at the grandiose entrance of a great lumbering BT. Crouching on the building just to the left of the great beast, she felt Higgs walk by her, a slight brush against her side when he got too close.

“Well darlin’, stay out of trouble and don’t go wandering off.” He adjusted his BB before slicking his hair back. “Showtime.”

In a flurry, he jumps to Sam,  leav ing her there on the roof  while he went his new plaything.  Eileen watched as he made his victim uncomfortable  _and_ pissed off. Holding a grown man by the back of his collar was a sure fire way to anger ‘em. A part of her wanted to laugh, seeing someone get so worked up over the taunting and teasing of a man who lost his marbles a long time ago.

A shadow fell over her form and her eyes shifted to see the behemoth inch by. Amelie, encased in chiriliam,  had become the heart of the massive creature.  She wondered if there was a reason he put her there.  _Easy Target_ , she thought to herself.

He was really just messing around with Sam at this point. It was taking him a long time to show off,  but when he finally came back, she felt the sweat on her brow. This was it. The first show down and one more step towards extinction.

“ Now come and get me.”

Higgs had  lowered himself in the center of the  chest, between two lungs,  and it creeped her out. He looked liked a massive golden infection.  Tormenting his opponent in more than one way, insulting him with harsh words and holding a metaphorical golden gun to the head of his dear sister.

But the porter had other ideas rather than let a few icy words and venomous insults keep him down. In fact, even if he fell, he was up in seconds. The tar wouldn’t keep him down, his stamina and courage maintaining it’s abundance.  He was going to save Amelie. He would save their country and get back everything that was his entire world. Nothing else mattered  now but that.

Hit after hit from a quadruple rocket launcher was starting to take its toll on both Higgs and the colossal chiral monster.  She could feel his exhaustion.  Both of them were wavering in and out a bit, the tiredness setting in from using so much power. Power. That’s all he wanted, no,  _needed_ . So that’s what she would give him. Licking her lips nervously at the thought, she braced herself on the edge of the roof and jumped.

Her jump was through the seam and to the shoulder of the BT.  She held onto the muck of it’s neck and stared, it reminded her of a fast paced river that led to the waterfall. Not a source, but a pseudo source.  Then she turned, to stare right into the other kind of blue she had been wanting to see. A familiar blue, the only color she could  perceive . The rest of the world a harsh reality of black, white, and the greys in between it all. Colorblindness, except for blue.  A blue that’s missing from the inverted rainbow but not  so well hidden from her.

His mouth was agape and the hardened stare of his stone gaze chilled her to the bone. It wasn’t the rain or the dropping temperature with the setting of the sun. His look was angry and detached; she wondered what he was thinking in that moment while their eyes were locked in battle. Instantly realizing that having such a strong connection with someone, being able to see inside their head whenever you wanted if you willed it strongly enough, was incredibly dangerous. The anger and frustration she felt from not being able to automatically know what was going on in another persons head. She felt a sudden urge to strange him well up within her as her dirty and thin hands clenched together. She gritted her teeth hard and almost recoiled at the sensation.

“ So you joined them huh? Enjoying hurting people? A sick  _fuck_ just like him now?”

His words tore into her and Eileen snarled down at him, teeth bare and a stark contrast to the dark, stained and messy leather outfit she sported now. Hardly tak en care of, always on the run after her  _master_ and never a moment to  properly groom herself.  She knew she looked like a wild animal, a feral let loose from the cage,  but she didn’t care. At this moment, she wanted the man who once delivered her to die.

“ What’s wrong? Mommy never taught you to be wary of strangers before she kicked the bucket? Want me to  _sing_ you a bedtime lullaby to make it all better?”

Shock flashed across his face before turning into rage as he ripped forward through the tar, slinging a gun off his tool rack and unpacking it.  Whatever curses he was throwing their way, they couldn’t hear, but knew it w as the plot ting of their demise. Looking at each other briefly, the  gold skull lifting  up to stare at her, glistening in the dim light of the moon hidden  behind  a similar g ilded shroud . 

Higgs seemed to be enjoying their little spat, a fun  half time show to kick off the  rest of the main theatrics.  He was grinning maliciously, a deep and sinister look plastered on his face.  A few shots may have hit their  mark and he might have started feeling the burn, but this was nothing. Even if he died here, the resulting voidout might even take down Sam. It would definitely do damage to Edge Knot City, which was just recently put back onto the map.  Plans may change but the end result stays the same. He could never deter the train that h ad already flown off the rails,  bound by no  track .

Raising the chiriliam up and swallowing the legs of his companion, he decided to use her as a shield. They may be  barking at one another right now but how long would Sam be able to  continue feign ing his aggressions? Would n’t he realize at some point the girl had been forced into this, unwilling but transformed now into his tool, a puppet for him to do as his wished.  Molded to be his perfect plaything, he bet his soul that she would turn  tail if she only could.

The lumbering beast too was a toy for him to use but it was rather slow and not all that intelligent, relying on the commands of someone in charge in a much different way. No real brain to speak of, this hunk of voidout was nothing more than a walking nuke. It made for a great story however, he was sure that people would be talking about this one for years to come, the first giant of it’s kind in the palm of the hand of Higgs _fucking_ Monaghan. Yeah, that sounded real good.

“Hear there Sam!? I’m Higgs  _FUCKING_ Monaghan! Ahah AHA — O oh SHIT !”

As he was firing his most recent string of rockets, aimed directly at the stomach of the BT where Higgs had just been moments before. Higgs had then swiftly jerked himself to the upper arm near the shoulder, and caused Sam to fuck up in more ways than one. The body of Eileen had popped up just near where he had been aiming, but it was too late to aim elsewhere. The rockets closed in their mark, and a part of his gut dropped, suddenly worried that he could have hurt her. With a frustrated grunt, he quite literally shook his head of his thoughts, tears streaming down his face, and grabbed another rocket launcher from the inky pools below.

M outh dropp ing once more as he watched the smoke and bits of tar clear. She was safe and sound, a giant barrier  like shield made of chiriliam covering the left side of her  exposed body . It had saved her from most of the blast, but it began crumbling soon after. Falling upwards to disappear slowly into the dark.

Even the surprise of a secret weapon wasn’t enough to keep a man like Sam down for long. With the seemingly endless supply of weapons, blood packs, and tools at his disposal; it was only a matter of time before he took down  the beast of the void .  It wasn’t easy, and it took him a lot of effort, expelling ever bit of energy he had.  But he did it. He won.  Covered in his own blood, sweat, tears, and the clinging sludge beneath his feet. Time and time again, he would always appear on top the pile of bodies.  Alone  and battered but victorious.

It fell like so many great things before it did. Brought down by a man with a greater heart.  As it fell, bits of gold shattered and flung around, the thick liquid under it violently rippling and flowing against the rubble.  The body dropped hard  as s lowly it reached for the endless above, but the rigidness of it tighten ed more and within a flash, it was dust  frozen in time . The massive BT finally down for the count, merely crystals in the air returning to nature.  It was akin to a smokestack of  glittering precious metals.

Cutting through the dense dust blowing around, Sam called out for Amelie. He called and called, before making his way forward a bit. The fog wall before him started to swirl and clear, making a path  of spherical clouds of uncertainty . Standing there at the end, in a bright red dress, was what he had been searching for. She was there waiting for him,  like she promised . A bright gold mask  that seemed to clutch her face.

When Higgs came from behind her and assured him Amelie was fine,  Sam felt fury rise within him. “ Extinction’s on hold for now.”

So he had run forward, yelling to her, for the vice to let her go. As he did this, the devil before him picked up his gun and prepared to let loose. His trigger finger had been itching for ages now, done with the play and with the theatrics. He was ready to get this over with once and for all. No longer amused by the players of the game, he would enter a cheat code if he knew it.

The harsh clank of metal on metal surprised all of them, the spinning Odradek on his back saving his life. Sam had never been so grateful for the thing than now. The confused irritation of his adversary only caused a sense of smugness well up in him, but it was short lived. Teasing a tiger backed in to a corner was never a good idea. More bullets flew his way with a vengeance.

What better target than what he tried to protect most?  The BB, of course. So Higgs did what any self respecting bringer of the apocalypse would do. A smartass remark before taking care of business.  No lollygagging. “ All that for a repatriate. What a waste.”

He brought the gun up high, aiming right at Sam and unleashing fury with the trigger. Eileen was on him in an instant, shoving his arm up suddenly, only a few shots hitting their target. The case for the BB cracked but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t what he wanted and he felt a frenzy bloat within him. He started screaming at her, bashing her shoulders with the rifle before turning back to his other victim. Furious that he almost dropped his precious cargo, since he still had a soft spot for Amelie, despite his swelling confusing feelings for the woman he just beat. Ignoring the sniffling from his companion, he lets off a few final rounds, “killing” Sam, and most importantly, winning the round.

“ I’ll see you at the Beach for the grand finale.” He swung around and walked passed Eileen who was trying to stop crying while sinking into the tar. “Get up,  you’re filthy now .  You know what happens next.  We’re going. ”

The hidden implications of having disrespected him, especially when it came to his rival.  She struggled to stand but could feel him ready to  make a  jump.  She braced herself, holding her shoulder and breathing hard, as the blood dripped down her back.  Looking to the other bleeding body across from her, she feels a light within her eyes die. A sort of hunger set in, the kind within the soul, not the body; one that longed for anything but loneliness with another person.  Even if that seemed to be the  irreversible destiny she was bound by. Higgs was going to be the death of her, she just knew it. Whether  that was  to be before or after the end of everything, he would destroy her soul long before that.

Pulling herself up by the mental bootstraps and chanting, _this is the way it has to be_ , she stood best she could and leapt into the great beyond with the eventual causality of her demise. The situation may not be ideal, but at least in her loneliness, she knows that her captor is suffering in it as well. In a way, he’s chained and trapped, bound to exist at her side in eternity after their corporeal form is long gone. She’s not truly alone after all.

ℵ

She needed Sam to get here, fast. They all needed him. He was the last KNOT in the strand, the one that was going to keep them all together. Ever since meeting him that day in the cave, being able to share in his melancholy, despite him barely giving her more than a few terse words; she’s b ecome as addicted as she is with cryptobiotes.  To her, he’s become the ray of light they all were waiting for, the break in the chiral barrier that keeps them from the stars.

Fragile knew that he too was fragile, but not  _that_ fragile. It would take a lot more to break him than just being defeated by Higgs in a fight. Unlike her, he was a repatriate  and could return to the world of the living with ease through its seams.  It doesn’t matter who took Amelie, she knew that Sam would be back on his feet in no time to rescue her. He had already gone all that way, but now they watched as he had to travel all the way back.

The journey would be easier but still take some time. She was so drained, feeling matched in energy as her weathered body.  Everyone around her, Heartman, Deadman, Die-Hardman, Lockne; it gave her the strength she needed to hold on but something in her was fading. The l uster of her own  spirit flickering out while she focused only on Sam Porter Bridges. Her own  tie to this world, her rope binding her in the dark to a solace she wasn’t able to pull herself to. She would have to wait for him to find the other end and bring her home.  Home, to him.

Once  upon a time, she felt that opening your heart to another would only lead to disaster, the last time she had, it took so much from  not only herself, but the world, and she vowed never again. To never again take a piece of her glass heart and give it away.  Like she had done with the leader of the Homo Demen s.

It was  a fragile  thing indeed , but glass could become powder and be just another form  with other uses .  The bricks of a sturdy foundation , or in the confines of more glass  as a way to keep time  still , it was unending.  The bits of temper ed sands reborn anew as  different chemical make up s or a  unique element made of many others. A legacy  all  of its own.

Feeling as if she was just trying to _convince herself_ a nd nothing more, the tears ran do wn _her fac_ e. She laid back, not truly hearing what Heartman was telling her but nodding her head nonetheless.  _He would get here_ ,  she kept repeating it in her mind ,  _he would_ ! 

She didn’t know if he loved any of them but hoped that deep down in his own caged heart, he had a love of his own for them. A tie that keeps him here, a gravitational leash of shared pains and experiences. She wanted to hold the other end of it, even if it meant being greedy, never wanting to see the small of his back as he disappeared into the world alone again. Her eyes fluttering closed, that was the last image burned into the back of her mind as she chanted a mantra to herself, and whoever would hear her, “Home. Come _home_.”

ℵ

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one took me a while. I actually have the next chapter almost finished, the end just about done, and the epilogue written.  
> But this chapter took from the last one until now; it just wasn't easy to write for whatever reason, but ended up a lot better than I expected.
> 
> Thanks again for reading!


	6. Celeste Velato

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This song for this chapter is The Machine by Low Roar.

ℵ

“I told you, and now it’s time for us to have some _fun_.” He grasped her hand a bit too firmly before leaning in nice and close. “A little thing I like to call _Punishment_ on the Beach.”

The way in which he said it made Eileen's skin crawl, as did the laugh that followed. His eyes had flashed with a nefarious blaze that shook her. He seemed less and less human as the days went by. Mumbling and rambling about power and defeating Sam. He was absolutely warped into an obsession over the guy. It would piss her off if she wasn’t so confused and almost saddened by how Higgs was degrading. Part of her felt bad for him, he seemed like just another tortured soul seeking freedom. Clearly Amelie was just using him, making him cling to whatever shred of control he could. If he would just let go; setting loose his doubts, worries, pains and troubles; and losing that feigned sense of control, then he would be free.

But to tell a man as disturbed as him to leap off the edge instead of continuing to teeter. Let go of the destructive abilities and inhuman skills like telekinesis, anyone would laugh before probably blasting a hole in their face. _Or throwing them against the wall_ , like he had done to her on several occasions.

The instant her eyes locked with the hanging dark rainbows of her Beach however, caused the tears to run down her face. He really took her here. To her own personal Hell. A house of mirrors of twisting evils, like great big eyes of cosmic horrors. The way they floated about reminded her of the gas bags that Sam had managed to slip through. Deadly. Dangerous. Creepy.

She felt like they watched her no matter where she went, hiding behind rocks, or even if she were to swim under the water. A piercing knowingness without the need for physical sight. The kind of perception that requires an awakening on a much deeper lever.

Suddenly she couldn’t breathe, like a hand wrapped around her neck, she felt constrained and held down. Her own hands flew up and felt the skin; bare, cold, and an ever present hand print providing no actual cover. Eileen’s body wavering and beginning to tremble.

He had said “Punishment on the Beach”, but he hadn’t realized exactly what the fuck he was in for. It was every bit as creepy as she had described it and the flashes of images when she thought of it; still, those were nothing in comparison. This was a literal nightmare on Hellstreet in the depths of the fiery pits.

Regardless, the teacher has to make sure the lesson sticks, right? He glanced over to her frozen form, watching as her body shivered; shaking almost, like she was sobbing.

Higgs came up quickly and caught her by her bad arm as she started to fall to the ground. He ignored or didn’t hear her cries of protest, lifting her high enough to hold her side, fingers digging into her skin. Carrying them both over to a patch of grass, he set her down first before immediately crawling over her. Suddenly face to face, he can’t think of anything to say.

Instead, with a strangely delicate touch, his gloved hand traced her cheek. Stopping briefly at the corner of her eye, he wiped the tears away and his own eyes flickered to her hazel ones.

She found herself trying to focus on his rather than the _others_. They made her shiver, as if a freezing wind had just blown through.

The bitter cold didn’t bother him, and he didn’t care if it was bothering her. They’d both warm up in a minute regardless, so without waiting any longer, he unbuckled his pants before going to do the same to hers. She was writhing and fidgeting beneath him, trying to wiggle her way out. He’s not really in the mood for her antics, something within him about to break, a twig with a lone leaf holding too much water. But the twig itself is in the shade, the dark place, dried and cracking under the pressure of carrying the life in water. He hated the poetry of it all. Hated himself for what he was and was doing, being the words, the meaning, the very fabric of that poem.

His mouth is on hers before he can stop himself, losing a part of his sanity and control. Letting his head lay back, closing his eyes, and just letting go of it all. The ebb and flow of a saturnalia laced with debauchery; a fiend of hunger on the night of the hunt for the main course in an unholy communion.

He takes her hard and deep there on the Beach. Violently and unhinged, but somehow weaving in tender touches and whispered honeyed words of affirmation. Blue eyes affixed on the wavering twisted looking inverted rainbows; his head on her shoulder, turned away from the halo of her hair. If one didn’t know what they stood for; what they really were, hanging here like drops of Jupiter, they looked rather beautiful.

The woman under him is distracting and noisy, yelping and crying out in a mix of pleasure and pain. His ears tuning out the drowning sounds of the waves, the wind a bitter memory, and her shrill sounds finally fading out. Even in his own mind, his grunting grew less prominent in his ears, a buzzing and dizzying feeling taking over him.

Gulping hard, a throat full of what felt like tar, he felt himself edging closer to his climax. Again and again he thrusts into her roughly before crying out, tears unashamedly streaming down his face, before he collapses, exhausted.

She’s crying too, her shallow breaths bringing him back to the present. The sound of the water, the stillness around them, their struggle to breathe together. He felt a passion there; sentiment, deep within him, bubbling up from the depths. It too strived for a taste of air.

He ripped off a glove and with a softness he hadn’t felt for many years, stroked her hair and pulled her close. Holding onto her, his lifeline, a reason for his surviving humanity however slim. His one and only comfort left here at the obsolescence of all matter.

ℵ

She watches from her place in the shadows, hiding to gain the upper hand against their final fight with Sam. This would be it, they would have to finish the fight here at the end of the world. She saw Higgs raise Amelie high into the air, her body curling up in the center of a great big spiderweb. The wispy strands becoming thickened cords, the spider in the center, not here among the rocks.

Eileen could hear them talking a bit away from here. Higgs was showing off as per usual, probably sauntering around. She kept her eyes closed, focusing on the sounds of the waves nearby and the emptiness of the air. If things went wrong here, this was the end of the line. Eyes fluttering open as her head him the rock behind her.

The ripples of the cord between them causing her form to blink in and out. He was jumping around a bunch. Their time together, strengthening their bond, it allows them more space, not that he actually gave her any.

Now either of them could jump or go to the Beach with breaking their tether, but it would cause the other to jump as well, no matter where they were or what they may be doing. It was, jarring, to say the least at first but she had grown used to it. The feeling was actually rather addicting, her body felt like it was tearing itself into pieces and rebuilding its corporeal form in a flash. Instantly creating her anew but the feelings that came with it were strange. She never felt changed, not really; not who she was on the inside, but it was more of a sense of familiarity. Like coming back home.

The rocks right behind her, and the whales near by, all began to lift up. Her mind stuck a bit in the flashes of still images of their shared consciousness, the exhaustion and rush of adrenaline, she truly felt like she was witnessing the apocalypse. The end was nigh she supposed. She kind of enjoyed it, wanting to finally be lost in the blue she couldn’t see.

A sudden lost and moody disposition settling in as she peaked around the rock to watch Higgs and Sam. Her partner was backing up, gun raised on his shoulder and probably saying something a smartass would say. Then he jumped and she did too.

She watched as Sam was left to look around for either of them, before he turned away and ran off in another direction, away from her. Higgs appeared behind him, a cat ready to play with the mouse before gobbling it up.

 _Good_ . She thought. _Gives me a second to prepare_.

Higgs moving about so frequently and with such fervor, she couldn’t keep up mentally with his shit. Breathing heavily already, she tried to clear her mind again and ignore his side of their mind battle. Something was wrong. Or rather, it was all going _too_ right for them. She felt overloaded and full to the brim, about to overflow.

The gold in her eyes began to flicker. A shimmering lacework within the hazel of her irises. Her vision and the colors blooming with them, causing her to waver. The ground looked inviting all of a sudden and she fell face first into the grit below.

Every so often, Sam would get a few good hits in. Gloved fists slamming against his opponent. He wasn’t just up against anyone, this was Higgs _fucking_ Monaghan but he didn’t care. Whether it was BTs, Higgs, MULEs, shit anybody at this point really. He would gladly pummel in the face of any dick who even looked at him wrong. Here he was, exhausted, running around trying to throw damaged goods at some _asshole_ at the end of the world, covered in dirt and grime. Tired to shit and _real_ tired of being given shit. To become a man unchained and finally just let loose his frustrations.

But then he thought of Eileen and hesitated, letting Higgs flash step back before he got a good slice out of his side. A golden tooth carving into its victim. The stinging burn pulling him from his thoughts as he swung wildly, trying to keep the predator away.

Wouldn’t do him any good to think of her. She was with the Homo Demens now. Didn’t matter if anyone liked it or not. He had heard _some_ of the details from Heartman and Deadman, but it was clear they were hiding some details from him too. The way they looked at each with matching ghastly expressions. He didn’t like it.

“Whatcha lookin’ for, dumbass?”

His taunt hit just as something else had. Higgs seemed to shudder deeply and clutched at his head as Sam took the moment to sock him right in the face. Launching the man a bit up off his feet as he fell back, completely surprised.

On the ground, he felt his breath quicken and his heart beat rapidly. Something had happened with Eileen but he didn’t have _time_ to deal with her antics. He dodged another hit from Sam and jumped back, moving far enough to catch his breath, crouching back behind a rock. He felt far enough from her now and wondered, albeit briefly, if she was alright.

Even with the extra distance between them, he had been incredibly distracted and Sam was behind him with the strand ready and waiting. He grabbed him and had him pinned, instantly tying him up before giving him a few kicks to the side. Each thrust and jab from the pointed boot tip felt like a stab to his gut.

When Sam raised a briefcase high above him, choosing this time to slam it upon his head, Higgs gulped hard and braced himself. Keeping his eyes open wide, to witness the oncoming darkness.

However, it never appeared. Same instead hesitating and giving pause to the rather tense moment of desperation. In that instant, when time decided to wait for these two warriors poised in the heat of the moment, one decided to pull again on his strings to the world beyond. Higgs reached a hand out, towards his weapon, and pulled with his mind, longing for a way to win. Calling his sword back to the sheath.

Having awoken from her stupor, feeling her heart about to burst forth from her chest. Higgs was losing, he was actually losing. Whether from sheer exhaustion from earlier, or from having to share their minds, spending energy on translating the fluctuating images, she didn’t know. The only thing she was sure of at this moment, was she had to help him. He _needed_ her.

If he died, so did she, but the resulting void out would be enough to destroy them all. Saving her own skin and the life of the rope keeping her together. The pain that reverberates from him to her, makes her stumble, an almost painless white hot sort of searing all over. But she has to get up, _she has to_!

He was finally giving in and asking, no, _begging_ for help. His grin widened as both him and Sam look to see her slowly walking towards them. Shock, and amusement, written plainly on their faces, disbelief at what they were witnessing.

The air violently whipping around her. Sand and seashells in miniature hurricanes at her feet, a giant mass of building, pure chiral energy. She brings it together, close in to her very soul, before piling it up within her body. Forming an impressively hefty spear of golden rock that covered her right arm. From finger tip to the top of her shoulder, the lance was heavy and weighed her down. She looked to her partner with a sureness in her expression.

“Use me. Like a dog, like a tool, it doesn’t matter anymore. _Use_ me Higgs! _USE ME_!”

Her insistent and boisterous command snapped him out of his stupor. She wanted to be used did she? To finally act like a dutiful wife in their unholy bond? Then he would. He’d use her up before himself. His hand lifted and with it, Eileen’s body. Like a puppet answering to the beckoning call of its master’s strings.

“Now that’s _golden_ girl, bow- _wow_. I knew you had it in you.”

His snake like smile gracing his features, face darkening as he turns back to his victim in preparation for round two of their final battle.

With a cocky sashayed step, he couldn’t help but egg him on. “Best two out of three?”

Sam just barely avoided getting hit by the tip of the spear, jumping to the side and feeling the sharp rocks cut at his face. She was thrown at him again and again, just narrowly missing their mark.  
  
They could all see that the sheer amounts of chiriliam were killing her. It’s like venom, corrupting her veins and turning her arm black and diseased. Slowly decaying and spreading to the rest of her body. Sam sees this and by sacrificing part of his side, catches her with the strand the next time she’s hurled at him. He wraps it deeply around the upper arm and it starts to cut off circulation while she’s writhing in pain. Too spent to keep going; her sight starting to fail, ears ringing.

Higgs approaches, trying not to focus on her but he sees the blackened part rapidly going up her arm. He feel himself start to laugh, “Oh _Sammy_ , you can’t keep running forever!"

Sam lunges to him, like a mad animal, and he goes to defend himself until the man runs right passed him. He teleported away quickly, for when he turned around, a gun was pointed right in his face. He had went for the abandoned rifle that lay on the ground behind Higgs.

“WOAH!”

“...Uh, I’m right here _Saaam_ -”  
  
Because he moved far enough from the two of them, it gave Sam an opening to run to Eileen. He held onto the rifle like a cross before firing shots, blasting her arm off. Bullets twisting and grinding through the bones and supple flesh. The haunting screams filling the beach, layering with the waves.

Higgs stares briefly in shock before throwing himself and tackling Sam while he screamed wildly, his own arm on fire. A blazing tinge he had never felt before, the stinging ripple that burned his veins. He became a beast unchained and they wrestle for a minute before rolling into the tar, arms fighting to get in any kind of hit.

Both of them sinking deeper into the tar as they carried on beating the shit out of each, the sight was rather grizzly.

“We’ve got DOOMs Sam.” Higgs removed the hood covering his face. A nod to his equal, a nonverbal handshake and admittance of that status of reaching the same level. To face him, Higgs, with powers nowhere near his level. Colour him impressed. “This was only ever gonna end one way…”

“So come on!”

Roaring a battle cry in the blood covered sludge, bruised faces and hands become shredded by the continuous contact. Man to man, they kept the grueling fight going. Soldiers at the final frontier and having their last big match in the ring.

Their bodies hanging limply like discarded dolls as the brawl neared its conclusion. Both of them were at the end of the line, no more energy to spend bashing in the others face. With a swelling eye, Sam tightened his fist once more. Vision doubling and wavering as he tried to breathe and stand his ground, the tar doing half the job. He concentrated all his remaining spirit into one last hit. The final blow.

His knuckles popped as they made contact with Higgs’ face. The man staggered and swayed, finally down for the count but it wasn’t enough for him. He wanted more.

Grabbing two shoulders in his bruised and bleeding grasp, he swung his head far back and then let it fly forward, bashing their skulls together. Once. Twice. Three times.

He fell, a great slumbering tree falling back to the earth from whence it came. Body slowly sinking into the black mire under the shadow of the spiders web. BB pod just barely visible, its flickering glow matching the blossoming yellows and reds of the bruises forming on the face of its owner.

Merely watching for a few seconds before trudging over to it. The body suddenly in his grasp was heavy. Heavy leathers and metals covered in tar. He owed a debt to someone important. Fragile would have her prize and her retribution. He may have had some personal grudges against Higgs, but this wasn’t his order. Not his call to make.

Then the ground was suddenly more comfortable than almost anything he had felt all things considered. Dragging that piece of shit over here and then getting a break himself, he wished he could press pause, the start menu, anything just to freeze time for a few moments while he rested. To be able to gather himself and let his mind process everything. Feeling worn thin, Same wiped his mouth of the grime and stared up at the muted sky.

“Getting a little touchy-feely there Mr. Aphenphosmphobia.”

More than anything, he wanted to smack him right in the jaw again for that one. He was a really satisfying man to hit. Too drained to bother another punch out, he just grunted and ignored the garbled laughs of the mad man.

Higgs turns, looking to Eileen as she lay semi-conscious on the ground, blood still dripping from her arm but the strand wrapped tightly around it, slowing the stream. She just needed to stay alive long enough for him to regain his strength and get over there.

“Well, congratulations, you won the game.” He cranes his neck and looks up, suddenly feeling a bit giddy. “Too bad you didn’t stop shit.”

Deep harrowing laughs causes him to choke a bit and wheeze. He just can’t help himself at the irony of all things. Sam had really tried to stop the inevitable but failed. It would end everything; the Extinction Entity, no matter what he did.

Sam sat up, staring down Higgs who was telling him to just get on with it, make the play. To finish the job, but as he was making demands, a looming shadow fell over him. The bag that dropped next to his head almost startled him. His eyes drifting up to watch Sam walk away and the view change to something a little less fragile. _But not that fragile_ he reminds himself.

Staring at her now, he knows that more than anyone. She looks like some sort of delicate angel of death, with the pseudo sunlight illuminating her blonde locks. “Fragile?”

Somehow, he seems like the one who’s fragile. Mentally kicking himself for the way he sounded so weak and pitiful. Her face seemed to agree, or perhaps it had been disgust at seeing him lay there.

“Guess I left a lasting impression.”

They almost both laughed, and if they had, it would have been dry and sarcastic. Bitter laughs shared between enemies before the guillotines blade dropped.

“I’m Fragile...but I’m not that _fragile_.”

Just about everyone knew the phrase and used it, like a prayer, a mantra, something to convince themselves that they weren’t fragile in that way. But no one would be _that_ Fragile. The one who was broken and put together at the same time. Both the hourglass and the sands within.

Higgs watched as Amelie fell into the arms of Sam, a wrenching in his stomach. His eyes were wide and wild, on edge and waiting for the worst to come. Movement beside him demanding his attention and his gaze drifted left. Fragile had knelt next to him with a rather smug look on her face.

“This time.” She said. “You’re the one who’s going to break.”

“Is that right? I think you’ll find that our bond is made of stronger stuff.”

Reaching his hand out to grasp at glory as she stood up, preparing herself for a fight. They all turned to watch Amelie who removed the golden mask to look back rather deviously at Higgs.

“Give me power, _dammit_!”

All eyes turned to him instead. As he struggled there on the brutal turf. Just a man again. No DOOMs, no powers, no more particle of god that would permeate all existence. He couldn’t believe it, he refused to! That final tipping point and the last finger hanging onto the edge of the cliff. He was about to fall.

“Oh? What’s this? You’re already broken.” She almost pities him, but a string of memories of the rain pour into her mind. Her body forcing her to stand over him, towering and blocking his view.

“What the fuck!?” He whispers, suddenly afraid and feeling _fragile_. He refused to back down however, more than his pride on the line. He could feel the line straining between them. His eyes shot down to look at it. Writhing there from his belly to hers.

Looking back to his undoing that stood before him, he felt anger rise up. “I’m Higgs!” Lunging up a bit at her, much like a snake bearing its fangs.

“I’m the particle of god that permeates all existence!” He had to remind himself that he was all that and more, no matter what Amelie had taken from him.

“What are you?” He taunted.

His face was spite and malice itself. “Honey, you ain’t _nothing_ but damaged goods!”

Her hands found their way to his face when she squatted down. One gloved and one uncovered. They caressed his tear stained, dirtied cheeks before she hoisted him up by the jacket and landed a welting strike on his face. She hit as hard as she could, feeling it deep within her bones.

“ _You’re_ damaged goods.” She retorts.

His vision was blurry and he faded in and out of the land of the living for a bit while they tied him up. _More strands_ he laughed maniacally to himself.

Sam ripped the necklace from his neck and gave him a cruel look. He wanted to do much more than just punch Higgs in the face but he leaves that to Fragile. Grabbing the gun on the ground just between the three of them, he handed it to the porter in question.

“Here you go, as promised.”

“Thanks.”

She watched him go, choosing to stare for a few moments then returning her attention to the man kneeling before her. Checking the gun first, she looked between the clip and Higgs. Something else caught her eye. That red wriggling thing between him and the girl. The other woman in question was slowly lifting herself up as well, arm tattered and the blood still dripping. She looked dead on her feet, like a zombie.

She looks around. First at Higgs, kneeling and staring right back at her, that red cord, and then lastly to Eileen who was just about to reach them. Then she raised the rifle and went to fire off a few rounds. Meant to hit the cord that attached them, out of curiosity or interest, she merely thought that it would separate them at worst. Having no idea the danger she had almost put them all in. Another proverbial nuke.

What had stopped her, and later she would emphasize that it truly was stopped just in time. Any later and she may have doomed them all.

Eileen had used the last of her strength to throw herself to cover the cord, but Higgs had done the same, only slightly different. He had just dove towards Eileen and caught her body with his own. It felt a bit too dramatic and all things going on considered, it was, but Fragile couldn’t help but feel her heart clench. A terrorist mad man had just risked his life to take a real bullet for someone else.

She knew he was hoping to see the end of the world but tried to willing throw himself away, showing that kind of weakness here, and now? She stepped back a bit, mouth agape. “B-but you, how _could_ you? You _both_ -”

Cutting herself off by covering her mouth and pacing a bit, her eyes looking to one and then the other. “You. You helped him do all those horrible things. Why?”

“Because.” She gasps a bit, gripping at her arm. The pain was deep and her arm had been fragile, _yes that fragile_ , she thinks before finishing. “I love him. _Unequivocally_.”

Almost like time stopped, the light around them seemed to shift, the final bits of chiral matter in her hair falling to the ground. Eyes no longer aglow from the substance. Just a regular woman now. Her powers and energy well spent. Sliding to her own knees and finally falling down to join her accomplice on the ground.

Higgs felt his heart pound, a warmth blossoming within him despite their rather surly predicaments. He looked away from everything else and seemed to hyper focus on Eileen. He had felt that from her before, almost as if they both knew how she felt about him, even if she had never admitted it. He would deny any notion of sentiment towards her, even as he swooned whenever he saw her. Blaming the red chain affixed between them, their forced isolated spent together, trying to accuse anything but his heart about how he felt.

Fragile just stares and grows mad beyond belief. The rage and fury within her, unleashing it in a wild like scream as she let pulled the trigger. The gun fired off into the air, commanding shots ringing out like flashes of light in the dark. Before the blanket of quiet fell once more.

Throwing the gun to the ground before them, she just stands there defeated and yet, victorious. Her tormentor at her feet, both him and his accomplice bloody and beaten in the dirt but she felt anything other than happy. Her eyes drifted over to Eileen, a feeling drawing her attention to her. There was something there, among the red cord between her and Higgs. Another one, smaller and blue, but then it disappeared, shimmering into the light, as if slipping between the seams of the world. Hiding in the backdrop.

“You’re _both_ broken.” The spate of tears began before she dried her eyes and left the remnants fall off her cheeks. Fragile turned away from them, deeds done and penance paid.

ℵ

Eileen. She hadn’t thought the girl would make it this far. Once a youthful hopeful replacement for Sam, she turned out to be helpful in another way. Keeping Higgs under control and distracted enough from her true motivations and goals; everything went better than the original plan.

Her mother had actually been Bridget’s clone, technically a clone of both Bridget and herself. It was however, a failure of a clone; where her body and mind accelerated too quickly and she had been swiftly dying, albeit not from cancer. No one had known. Not the woman herself, nor the husband; the only people knowing being Bridget and Amelie, and only sometime later after Eileen’s birth, Die-Hardman. The man who would later adopt her, the irony of the web of lies between all of them. It kept them connected but under the veil of falsities.

“Sam, thank you. What you’ve done for me, for America, for her people. Everyone owes you a dept of gratitude and I’ll tell you everything else shortly; but first, there’s something I need to talk to you about. It’s about Eileen.”

ℵ

Here at the end of the world, there isn’t much around, and she and Higgs share such a deep connection. Their bond strong like when Lockne and Målingen became one. The idea that a concept like red strings of fate was true, and two broken souls found each other. Two halves of a whole. They belonged as one being, one entity, to become uniform in a world that rejected forming a bond like that.

The story of Plato’s Symposium – the separation of man and woman into two forms. Two people forever bound by something like destiny, doing what was undone by a catalyst in the beginning of time. Beyond the boundaries of life and death; their souls and bodies, their "Ha" and "Ka" linked to such a degree.

Eileen was so sure about that now. An overwhelming calmness knowing that things really do just happen. No grand scheme, no rhyme or reason for the way things are in the world. It's then up to each individual person to get through it, or drown. Right now, she was cascading into the deep, suffocating in the passionate embrace of a terrorist named Higgs Monaghan. He had a strong, strangling hold on her but she found herself unable to want to let go.

It swam between them, ebbing and flowing in the sighs of their spirits. She made sure to clasp his hands into her own, both callused and torn up from being beyond their years. His eyes watched as she lifted them to her lips and smiled, before they both closed their eyes in contentment and were dragged into the lullaby of shadows, together.

ℵ

An arm with a red sleeve reached out and grabbed the same coloured, dirtied cord between the two bodies. It grasped ever so slightly, then slowly opened, letting it slide down but as it reached the slender fingers tips, it began to disintegrate. Fraying and ripping into threads, floating up toward the empty sky. The bits that rose upwards, like red snow in reverse, a bloodied and tainted innocence now freed from its bondage. They would be free, the doors opened up for them again, letting in the light from below.

Amelie watched as their bodies were picked up by a growing tide, a little help from the sea as she let them drift off into the deep. Hopefully not to be lost, but to find themselves. The clouds above growing darker as the sky warped and morphed. She hoped they would use this second chance at life to do good things for America and her people; Amelie’s people.

That they would join hands and make KNOTs with everyone around the country, even the entire world. To bring about a new kind of everlasting peace between nations. A world without war and a home for all of those in need of one.

She hoped that Sam too would be there; for a long, long while.

ℵ

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And finally, we come to a close. The curtain falls and the cast bows.
> 
> Big thank you to everyone who kept me inspired and motivated to finish this.  
> I had a lot of fun getting back into writing.


	7. Serpent of Exile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this chapter is Death Stranding by CHVRCHES.

ℵ

The cool breeze made the temperature a bit more than chilly, despite the warm sun lingering behind the chiral atmosphere. Clouds lazily went by, a few cracks of thunder, but the weather was on the up and up. It helped put the spring in the steps of two tired porters making their way to Lake Knot City. Their last stop in a string of partial deliveries they decided to make on their way back home.

When they got to the city, one of them, the taller of the two, gave a bundle on their chest a few honeyed words before stepping into the dim glowing blues of the ramp. He left the other outside, knowing they never stepped foot inside buildings like this ever again. This was the usual routine and he didn’t mind it all that much. Usually front and center regardless, he kind of liked to be the one to get recognition again. It was nice to not be the face of wanted posters or quite so infamous anymore.

William Lake was there to greet him like always. A kind look in his eyes with a warm hello was sure to follow. “Well hey there! Long time no see! Thanks for the delivery, we can always count on you two for service and speed. How’s the wife by the way? I see you brought the kid too!”

“Howdy there Will, we’re all fine and dandy here.” He bounced the child in the sling a few times and laughed. “He’s doing good too. His name’s Jonny.”

“Fine name if you ask me. Reminds me a lot of a BB the way you carry him. Kinda reminds me of Sam too. You heard from him? The man up and disappeared like a ghost.”

He sighed. “Sorry but I haven’t. Only heard legends of the Great Deliverer. The guy must have really been something if people still can’t stop talking about him right?”

“Oh yeah.” William scratched at his jaw absentmindedly. “He was probably the best of the best we ever had. Really a shame what happened. Can’t believe that he’d be dead or anything like that, but not sure why he’d just run off. Besides all the bullshit that went down of course.”

A few flashes of tar, monsters, and the web of lies built over the fabric of country called America went through his mind. The terror and chaos of that growing maddened world that Sam had healed. If only dear William knew just what had really happened not too long ago.

“Hopefully you guys won’t be leaving us anytime soon, huh?” William laughed.

He felt a tightening in his stomach as he tried to laugh along with him but just didn’t find the humor in it. He was lost once himself, almost dead too, but there had been people out there who cared about him, believe it or not. They saved him. Those bonds he thought of as feeble and pointless had shone down, illuminating the vast void where he laid bare and broken and had given him a rebirth.

“Were you the one to name him by the way, or was it your wife?”

Dragged out of his own thoughts, he smiled wide for real this time. “She did. She’s way better with that sort of thing. I would’ve named him something ridiculous like Ramses.”

They shared a few more jokes and words between them, before the sheepish porter accepted one more delivery. A short stop on the way back to their bunker, one final easy mission before they can lay down their heavy heads and rest for a while. They had worked extra, premium deliveries for about eight months straight in preparation. His _wife_ would be giving birth soon to their second child, the gender a mystery just like the first time. Leaving it up to fate to decide, letting go of their controlling nature, choosing to nurture a welcomed surprise.

“Oh hey, be safe out there. Thankfully the BTs are lessening, but the MULEs are always around, maybe even getting worse. I see 'em gathering together like ants sometimes. Feels like something big’s comin’."

“Thanks for that. We’ll be on the lookout, maybe take the long road home. Few more minutes won’t hurt, not like it’s a timed delivery.”

The boot steps echoed loud and clear against the cold tile, almost covering up Williams final words, “I mean it Peter, be safe out there! Bye kid, see you when you’re a porter!”

Peter, as he was known as now, walks up the ramp but slows midway to a crawl, rubbing his belly a bit. Its missing puzzle piece all but forgotten by most who lived to tell the tale. His legacy dying with his old name, _Higgs_ , but the ghosts of that moniker still linger in the wastes of the world. All would remember that man, but not him, not “Peter”. Now he was just some porter with a humble family and a body full of deep wounds from a past life.

The scar tissue was a stark and harsh reminder of the old, red umbilical cord that bound him to a light in his own darkness. A noose like tether around his belly that kept him alive and awake, despite the pain and agony of trying to bring an end to all things. The wretched thing was a curse for the longest time but now the cross shaped mark kept him bound in better way.

He wasn’t a man of God, but he was a man who often made religious jokes; frequently about how he should’ve called himself Adam instead, but his wife didn’t laugh, she only made a face. “Well then, _Mary_ me, and I can be Jesus instead!”, is what he said before grinning deviously and spinning her around. The thought brought a smile to his face as he walked on and out in to the brightness of the sun, face mostly uncovered, except from the little shade from the brim of his hat. His eyes still adjusting, annoying him as he tried to rub at them before stopping beside his wife. She smiles sweetly at the both of them, causing him to reflect her blissful expression as they began walking away together. Hand in hand, her left being the only remaining one; as he carried both the burden of a child and the materials they were to deliver.

Suddenly she stops and turns westward, letting her hand slip from his. She had felt something, sharp pinpricks on her neck and a lingering sensation, from her days of suffering DOOMs, but there’s nothing there. Thunder in the distance, perhaps just the echos of her husband calling out to her, but nothing more. It had felt like the shadow of a hand reaching out and under her, trying to grasp at her own despite the brightness of the light above that bathed everything in a suffocating brilliance.

“What is it? Is everything alright? Darlin’?”

She makes her way forward to his side, “Nothin’ but a gut feeling I think.” Rubbing her belly just as he did before, tenderly and longingly, feeling both full and empty. The other child within her moving around stubbornly. “I’m sure it’s nothing, maybe just the air pressure changing ‘cause of the oncoming storm.” She began cooing and singing along with him at both the baby in his sling and the one within her, worries mostly forgotten now.

The Englerts were a real good family, you could ask any of their regular customers or neighbors. They had friends, almost like family to most of them, all over the country. Eve was a loving wife, but wouldn’t take shit from anybody. Peter, her husband, was doting and loving, always by her side, but tough as nails when he needed to be. A few folks thought it was strange, the way they seemed more attached to each other than anything. As if they could read each others minds, moving in sync like dancers in a grand ballet. Almost as if bound by a strange yet unseeable force.

And some might even say they know Sam Porter Bridges and have been seen walking with him, or his ghost; but nobody really knows.

ℵ

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I said it was a tragedy, but I couldn't help but give everyone a happy ending.
> 
> Very short epilogue but the idea just wouldn't leave me alone. I wrote this while writing chapter 5 haha.


End file.
